Deer Run

Here comes that buck again. Long flank, long shanks, big crown of antlers. Hooves cracking the ice-glazed early season snow in the yard, and on the other side of the grass there is a huddling confluence of doe, softly rendered into watercolor smudges of brown by frost on the window. Marcus from next door, also long bodied, long legged, hands that are twice the size of yours, asks hey, whatcha looking at? You ask if he knows what a deer run is, how the stretch of land between your trailer and the woods is their personal highway and he says nah, I don’t know shit about animals, and he drops on the bed next to you, his arm and shoulder press along your arm and shoulder, and your heart is beating hard, like the heart of a prey animal, as the buck punches his way across the lawn and another buck, half the antlers, smaller in size, steps out to meet him. You ask Marcus does he know that deer sometimes scream when they fight and Marcus presses closer to the window to watch, even closer to you, and he says no shit, he didn’t know that either. You tell him you’ve seen bucks go at it out there all the time, locked together by their antlers, snorting and pushing and biting, that it sounds a lot like boys fighting in the locker room, and he laughs, but Marcus isn’t ready for the sound of it, and when the bigger buck screams Marcus clutches your wrist and says holy shit that’s fucking eerie man! But the deer don’t fight, instead the younger buck runs his nose up the older one’s neck and you can see each exhalation hang in the air, and when you inhale, you smell Marcus underneath his deodorant, his garlicky pizza breath, then you hold your own breath as the larger deer mounts the smaller one, even if you can’t hear them grunting through the closed window, you see the small, quick clouds forming around them, but instead of jumping off the bed, Marcus shifts closer so his breath ghosts down your neck and he asks, eyes locked on the deer, hey, did you know deer could be gay too, and the bed is crackling like thin ice beneath you when you answer yeah, Marcus, I know. 

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About the Author

Ani King (they/them) is a queer, gender non-compliant writer, artist, and activist from Michigan. They can be found at aniking.net, or trying to find somewhere to quietly finish reading a book without interruptions.