Deer Hit

For centuries of poetry in English, deer represent freedom, beauty, and a strain of unattainable wildness that cannot be subjugated, even in death. From Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt” and its depiction of Anne Boleyn as one of the king’s protected deer, to the now-commodified Monarch of the Glen and its association with human traits like integrity and nobility, deer images represent elusive, intense independence and unreachable superiority. In “Deer Hit,” a careless driver destroys a deer with at least some measure of intent, acknowledging in the end the deer’s beauty. The driver takes part in the deer’s connection to harmony, nature, and virtue the only way he can: by hitting and killing it. The driver cannot see the deer individually at first, only the “road full of eyeballs” (Line 6), ethereal like “small moons glowing” (Line 7), otherworldly and remote. By the time he can appreciate the deer’s “beautiful body” (Line 45), he kills it and dumps its remains in the woods. The narrative becomes a desecration of nature and nobility. What the driver cannot possess, he destroys, leaving throughout his life “a trail of ruin” (Line 52).