I Take My Lover As My Lover Again (fantasy challenge)

Again the skin of the road has opened and they are shoveling tar back in,
tar which did not come from the ground but is now to take the place
of the ground. They wear orange to warn. They smile when I wave,
and wave back again, these men who are not my men, who are not
the famous poet, who are not my lover I take in dreams again. And again
the road is a snapped-shut barrette. And here comes the speckle,
the first pock of snow, the cold to crack it wide. A flat surface can rend.
The body can horrify after the body. See, someone has propped also
by the road: the trace of a deer, ribboned with flesh, two legs upright, two
set on the rail, posed as if dancing, and it isn’t a bow at the headless,
red neck, and you would know about such things. Tagged, you would call

the deer, or call it by some other name, because you name, my lover.
And again it is dark, and the thrash in the sweep looks almost like wings.
It is brown like wings. It is big and leaping, then dying, then dead.
In the headlights: the deer’s eyes like candied pits. Someone pulls out
a knife. Someone pulls back the head. I lied when I said this. We are
none of us known. I lied when I said I could lose you again. And again:
the winter thinning, bark chewed through teeth, the ribs showing, the trees
on the other side. On the other side there are the last of the golden
raspberries. On the other side, each burst is like a fingertip, and again
in the middle, all the middle, is the ribbon road, is the star stream, is the long
long run. Run it again. Again. I love you. I love you. I love you. Live.