Five p.m. traffic unravels its way toward the winter sun’s western horizon. On the highway, to my left, lies a deer just hit. From the corner of my eye I see a vapor trail of steam from its body rising into the below-zero air. Three-fourths of an ounce of substance, they say, lost at death; is it this weighed absence, a promise measured by less, which clouds my rear-view mirror?

the way the sun
trembling before the fall
glitters in the snow

—Previously appears in Contemporary Haibun Online (Volume 2, Number 1, March 2006); republished here by author’s permission

Bio: Marjorie Buettner