Michael Sikkema on “Watch for Deer”

“Watch for Deer” was sparked as a meditation on the phrase that is all too familiar to people living in rural MI, and I'm sure other places. "Watch for deer" people will say when you are leaving the party, done visiting, heading home from work, leaving for work, driving out to the big lake, running into town for beer or whatever. "Watch for deer" I tell my 2 year old daughter when we get to the spot where we almost always see them in the woods around the nature center. "Watch for deer" my two year old daughter says when we pull into the gravel driveway at my mom's house. She's remembering the time deer came out of the woods into the front yard and ate from the apple tree. "Watch for deer" is what the people in act 1 of American horror movies should do so they aren't left with a smashed hood, a steaming radiator, and a slit throat. Watching for deer is all about cutting and edges. Deer are edge critters and would be drawn to the yummy stuff growing on roadsides even if those roads didn't cut across their established trails, which of course they do. The first spark of the poem came when I watched a woman in an SUV hit a doe last year. I stopped to help and saw the doe, dead-eyed in the ditch, and obviously very pregnant with twins. "Watch for deer" I told the other driver as we were getting ready to drive away. "You too" they answered and we left feeling haunted and helpless. All of that steeped and percolated for a while and ended up in a series of poems.