The White Eyelash


Like Liquid Paper over a comma, never-
theless, I paused, the time to anticipate that
aberration as error, my mirror’s mistake.

Years ago, an albino doe moved amid
the mascara forest of November, then
showed herself in a clearing of drifted

snow. Who would not blink at such a sight,
question the light? A hunter gauged that
startling white, an apparition haunting

his blood sport, as if an absence
of pigment might transport the target
to its fate. We see ourselves too late.

Ammunition accelerated her leaping
run. The wand of darkness had come.
In a blast or a blink, we succumb.

Reprinted fromYale Review and The White Eyelash, Grove Press