Three Poems

Poem as a Baby

I’m in the crib
Looking at my mobile
I can’t describe how new this world is



Suburban Voicemail

Hey it’s me

I was just calling
to say there’s a deer at the bottom of our pool

A young buck by the looks of it

He’s still
his hind legs splayed
his front legs outstretched
as if leaping
his velvet antlers reaching for each other
his eye black and serene
I’m looking at him now—
he looks two-dimensional under the water
you know how the water warps our vision

It must have happened last night
we must have been sleeping
or surely we’d’ve heard
although I don’t know
how loud an event this was
if he just sunk noiselessly
or somehow treaded
how well deer can even tread water
and now that I think about it
maybe I did hear a splash
you know those sounds in the night
we try to forget as soon as possible

But now I can’t stop picturing him
thrashing slowly downwards
coming to rest just so
and the water growing still around him
I can’t tell you how many dreams I’ve had
since we put in this pool
in which I find one of our boys down here
and now here I am
except it’s a deer
which feels more like a dream than all
those dreams I’ve been having
but of course it’s real

It’s real
and it’s something we need to clean up
so please come home
I need your help
I can’t lift him on my own
Love you bye

I love you so much
Okay bye



Potential Coaster

There’s a new rollercoaster

in beta at Disney World.

There are no cars.

They say just looking at it is enough

to strike fear into your heart.

They say just imagining how it would feel

to fall from such a height

to go around and around

such merciless loop-de-loops

is enough to pierce icily

down, down

through all the things you thought you’d learned about

the world since you were a child

the things armoring your heart against the senseless fears

you fear before you know the difference

between what is and what is not

and everything is possible

including the most terrifying thing you can imagine

and fill you with the awesome

fear/rapture again

you thought you’d learned to forget how to feel.

____
Marshall Peace lives in New York, NY. He is the author of the Substack Distant Relative.