Oh, Deer

 

Two policemen with cars, lights still flashing -

More used to tending human disaster

Stand non-plussed, observing scene of torment.

A bulging Four by Four, frozen mid-skid;

Still warm, abandoned guiltily askew

Partially conceals the horrified shame

Of two forty-something blondes, smartly dressed.

 

One crosses her arms over thumping chest,

The other barks into a mobile phone

Possibly talking liability.

Shining in summers gold-grey mottled threads,

A Roe buck lies smashed, propped against kerb stones -

Pain and misery outlined by tyre marks,

Still redolent of rubber; oily, black.

 

His velvet spiked crown weighs heavily on

Disney head, nodding in rhythmic panic;

The rap, rap, rap of antler on tarmac

Scrapes bone percussion – a death staccato.

A distorted bonfire of shattered twigs

Scrabbles a delicate cloven tap dance;

I meet your dark eye, not yet resigned

To inevitable euthanasia.