Seeking Solace

open up an opera in my deer in headlights so you feel its yearning yodel.

               don’t sling stage lights under the chin of my deer in headlights.     inhale your growl
around my dear in headlights, and

               save your bulldozer from my deer in headlights—my fear of becoming a flattened,
streaked python, my Lord, I’d rather be a peppermint.     as soon as you spot me, let
my deer in headlights wag around your ankles, then your ears.

stream shamrocks down the spine of my deer in headlights.     savor the whitetail scent of
my deer in headlights     let a parade march right out my deer in headlight’s eyelids.     slide one
secret admirer to my deer in headlights, then twist dimples in it, and tell it to un-diminish itself.

my deer in headlights deserves it, your midsummer night song you scat by a bonfire, your mega
parachute you stretch across to face the constellations.     please,

pin my deer in headlights on a Packer’s fan, let it jangle in a cowbell.     let it swing like a
pendulum from the Statue of Liberty.     hand over a million-dollar Happy Meal to
my deer in headlights, with award-winning sweet and sour barbeque sauce.

               don’t slap a sad emoji on my deer in headlights.     don’t divorce my deer in headlights,
before you learn its name.

it is true, my deer in headlights belongs in a folktale, in bold on the flyer of the ball of the
millennium.     so,

skate into a sandcastle with my deer in headlights.     let it surf on the back of a flamingo.
swirl my deer in headlights in chardonnay, let it suds until it rises into a hallelujah.

Hallelujah! is the sound of the buzzer when my deer in headlights portals into
your softest district.