It was spoken
in the angle
of the fawn’s cracked neck
twisting toward flank.

It was whispered
in death’s blinding act
the unseeing eye,
all life’s promise broken
in a flash of steel
headlights and flesh
meeting.

It was echoed
in the brown and white-spotted husk
crumpled on the roadside

while the doe stands
across the divide
still, listening, waiting.