Hello, slowdown listeners. Poetry Magazine has a special offer just for you.

Subscribe to one year of Poetry Magazine today and receive their limited edition tote bag.

For $39, that's the cost of one Lubu.

You'll receive 10 beautifully curated print magazines of contemporary poetry,

unlimited digital access via the Poetry Magazine app, and a tote bag to carry it all. Subscribe today at poetrymagine.org

slash slowdown 25 to receive this special offer.

I'm Maggie Smith, and this is the slowdown. I live in Central Ohio, where deer are a part of life, even in the suburbs.

My parents still live in the house I grew up in, which is in a densely populated area,

residential streets and cul-de-sacs and strip malls.

There is a creek running behind the house that leads to a reservoir, though, and wildlife

tend to follow the water. So it's not unusual to look out my parents' back windows to see a buck standing in the yard,

or a heron, or a red fox.

My house is in another suburb, about 20 minutes from my parents, and closer to downtown Columbus,

and I have walked outside to get into my car in the

morning and seen in my next-door neighbor's yard a group of white-tailed deer. They may have followed

Alam Creek into my town, but in my neighborhood they are hemmed in by busy roads they must cross

to get back to the woods and the water. It always makes me nervous and scared for them to see deer

in neighborhoods. The odds of one being struck by a car are just too high. I've always had a

sweet spot for deer, maybe because my father was a hunter when I was a child. We had not one,

but two deerheads in our house. One hung in the living room for many years,

despite my mother complaining about it to my father. No one wanted to watch TV with a taxidermied

buck staring at them with plastic eyes.

...