Early Morning Interruption

Photo by Robert Woeger on Unsplash

If you’ve ever been running or walking alone, while also being (or appearing) female, I am almost certain you’ve had an experience like this — Where some (usually) man decides to get into your space, verbally or physically, and then gets angry when you do not accept it. It’s been a while for me. (I honestly thought my gray hair was a shield.) But it happened today. Fortunately, another woman came by to soothe the after-effects.

You, with your eye patch and red Solo cup,

leg stuck out in my path like a dirty denim kickstand.

With your fragile feelings and

hostile response to my silence.

You wedged into a quiet morning demanding my attention,

left behind menace that clung to me like so many spiderwebs.

You almost kept me from a miracle.

At the dark part of the trail, I wondered if you were lurking

to take your revenge on my humorless self.

I almost ran around it for fear of you

But I didn’t.

I turned a deeply shaded corner and heard a rustle behind me --

jump-turned with the sharp ends of my keys ready and--

Looked into the placid brown eyes of a young mother deer

leading three spotted fawns through the woods.

She stepped, dignified, into the thick green

while the fawns leapt, one by one,

crooked on their new legs,

the last one glancing over one shoulder

at this strange two-legged, frozen in a defensive crouch.

I exhaled and stepped lightly back onto the path --

bounding, leaping,

connected again to the magic of this place.