Mary Oliver – revisited
it is a harsh gray chain-link fence
a doe caught in a link
dogs, her blood in their noses
run.
i run,
an instinct.
a blanket to protect her
i smother myself against her belly.
blind, she panics
my intention misunderstood.
free, she bounds
from metallic chaos
to green sanctuary.
i don’t really know why your poem made me think of this rather than the others (maybe it was the word ‘belly’) but an old world cure for polio is to put the infant (it’s usually an infant) in the belly of a freshly slaughtered cow. My mom’s godmother was mostly cured like this (she was from former Czechoslovakia) though she was somewhat handicapped later in life. Anyways, the idea of the warm belly and protection and smothering just came to me, and gave both your poem and the original a new level of meaning. nice work!
the first four lines of this poem are startling because of what you do with language. With such a small number of words, you are able to move through a lot of action and make it seem so real. I get the feeling that this is how animal’s think: in fragments and commands. Then again, in times of panic, humans probably do to. You intertwine humans and animals in this, and I like how the narrator jumps from the mind of the doe to the mind of something/someone else. I think you could go further with this poem, it has a great beginning.