The deer cast long shadows
on the pasture fence;
with three crowned heads,
they are wise creatures walking to the city
for the birth of a necessary miracle.
There is a murmuration of starlings
pointing fingers east.
The wind blows the alder’s branches
towards a war in crowded places.
Boots and guns are moving
through distant streets.
Far away a father hides a small girl
in a toy box; she lies next
to a raveled bear.
Her door is kicked in by masked men;
her mother turns up beseeching palms.
In the window a needful star
lifts too late.
Was this the child?
I pick up the phone in the night.
There is a vast web of connecting whispers
far away. It links building to building
and home to home.
I hear voices say
She is gone.
They were here.
Hide. This
is where they are now.
Kristin Roedell graduated from Whitman College (B.A. English 1984) and the University of Washington Law School (J.D. 1987). Her poetry has been published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Switched on Gutenberg, and Ginosko. She authored Downriver (Aldrich Press, 2015) and Lessons in Buoyancy (Poetry Box Press, 2026).