Urban deer are just obstinate landowners refusing to move when Mega-bucks corp decides to build a mall in their back yard

I can still find my way around the town where I grew up,
though I haven’t lived there in decades – a tattered sweater
that no longer warms but I can’t bear to throw away.

Deer graze church lawn in city center.
Tired of searching for natural habitat, they gave up,
declared this is where we live now.

Once, on the way to the laundromat, I found myself
pulling into the church parking lot. My Civic
knows its way to that church.

A mother brings her three fawns often to prance
and play or just laze about.
I smile when they drop by to visit.

When I last moved it only took a week, maybe two,
to settle in and feel I’d always lived here
swaddled in my own little cocoon.

Perhaps mama deer thinks the city is safer
than a forest, people too busy shooting each other
to bother her and her children.

I set out the stuffed bear I bought on vacation in Vermont
and hung my great great grandfather’s pastoral painting,
fisherman and dog next to stream.

My friend with the carefully cultivated vegetable garden
resents the fence she had to build. To her, deer
aren’t much more than extra-large hoofed rats.

Alone, wrapped in a blanket on my couch, the movie
brought me to tears, transported back to my mother’s
ragged, dying breath.

The deer lie at the edge of the church yard and watch
as I walk to my car, unwelcome guest finally
taking their leave.

©2026 Kenneth W. Arthur