Ki Russell

The Antlered Woman Responds

The Antlered Woman Responds

After Mark Doty

On misty-gray, not-dark, not-light days

I feel bone sprout from my temples.

I try to catch a glimpse in store windows.

I should keep my eyes on the ground

instead of stepping out of forwardness.

But my allegiance is not to permanent forms.

Plain clothes hide hooves and haunches,

the elongated grammar of muscle,

and me without a trench coat.

I am the respiration of the grass

and my animal alphabet

fails on a regular basis.

Years from now on a tonal night

my feet will evaporate into cloud

and my antlers will twine with stardust.

For now I am less anatomy

than a storm, a glittering, gathering mass,

an antlered woman dodging traffic.

Published by Sugar House Review, issue 1, December 2009
Reprinted in The Moment of Change (anthology of feminist speculative poetry) May 2012