Among Elks

lilacs like turf stars.

The late fawn

standing in his syrups;

bucks down the swale

chewing sedge.

We move south

to slopes of sleeping poppy,

past the white alder,

bending heads to scent

of calx—in natural dark

a man tries his hand

at belonging. He

with greave of hide, a born

hood, lay with three

spikes in the clay, green

peak in the breeze.

He whose breathing

wrongs the still.

You stir now to mend,

to redress?

To be one of us, after all this?