The doe in the yard
There’s a lot of deer that come through the yard. One doe had twins and when they were still dappled, they would wander around in the road. She came close to the house often, and she was so skinny. She had the round barrel belly of a ruminant still, but around that you could see her delicate rib cage under the skin, and a hollow fossa in her flank under an overhanging eave of her lumbar muscles. The rib cage seemed human-scaled, like there was a person in there, wearing a deer suit. I found her relatable. It reminded me of a time when we were learning to work with pigs in vet school. The barn manager pointed to a gilt and had us all guess her weight. I looked, and thought she seemed like me, densely muscled, lean, not very long or wide, so I said 120 lbs. When she walked onto the scale, and she was 119, the barn manager nodded approvingly at me, saying it’s rare that that happens. Most people wildly misjudge. But like recognizes like.
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