The deer is not a figure for human experience.
—Daisy Fried

As if the store were a kind of field,
I defended the men’s end and Jenny
McNamara—who wouldn’t quit dating Teddy
Spencer, who hit her—tended to women’s
with Donna and Barb. We shared
a strip mall with Waldenbooks and Mammoth
Video, where Joanie—my girlfriend then—
wore her auburn jersey to rent pornos
to Teddy’s dad. Our floor was all racks
and forms. Forest of straps and seams,
necklines, Jockey, stockings, swimsuits,
silk socks, cotton and velour. The store,
fronted by sidewalk sale, was surrounded
in parking lot and pines. What sounded
from the breakroom like an earthquake
was burst glass. What seemed like a deer
kicking through displays, desperate
for purchase in first the window well
and then the waxed aisles, panicked, was—
we know from the ruby spots and blonde
locks, and because we saw it—in fact
a deer. Trapped until it tore itself a door
or found the hole again. I don’t remember
how it got out, only that it did, and was gone
in minutes. Nothing so shocking should
ever be rendered into metaphor. No
human, no matter how lost, has ever
landed naked in a Dancers and had to
ram their way out. I did, however, have to
squeeze into the fitting room with an old man
and help him try on pants. He was grateful,
I think, and I got to make Jenny laugh
for a few minutes midshift. She had
the brightest teeth I’ve ever seen.