by Daye Phillippo
3:00 a.m. August 13
Standing in the dark, searching the night sky
for meteor streaks, I hear a deer whuff distress
at sensing me there, a deer come, most likely
to eat from the apple tree so heavy with fruit
that late yesterday afternoon, without even
being coerced by wind, a thick limb, high
on the tree’s central trunk gave way, fractured
and splintered, yet still attached, laid down
its fragrant offering with a sigh of leaves, gently
the way a weary server might set down a tray.
She has done what she could, Jesus said
of the woman who anointed his body,
every drop of fragrant oil in her alabaster box,
breaking it open (no going back)
then spilling it out and wiping clean his feet
with her hair the way this bough
now brushes the earth with heart-shaped fruit.
Trespasser here in the dark, I step back
into the house to let the deer eat its fill in peace.
Daye Phillippo taught English at Purdue University and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Presence, The Midwest Quarterly, Cider Press Review, One Art, Shenandoah, The Windhover, and many others. She lives and writes in rural Indiana where she hosts Poetry Hour at her local library. Thunderhead (Slant, 2020) was her debut full-length collection. You may find more of her work on her website: www.dayephillippo.com