what I didn’t tell the insurance agent

How time knelt down. And the deer hit my car

like a thud of earth. About the elongated whirl

of the Ryder truck speeding past me on the highway.

How July was folding in and August threatened, or how

brilliant the dew shone in the aftermath of morning

and the meeting of land and sea changed constantly,

minnows stranded in pools and puddles until night

tide brought them back to sea. How the sun, porous

yellow then orange, crossed the striated sky

and the cold tide retreated. The beach a moonscape

of dune and grass and fluke prints graced black craters

of sea where the humpback—neon with zooplankton

splashed her way back to the dark. And I was pulled

toward shark and jellyfish. Swirl and kelp like hair,

smaller fish through my legs a school of bats, light

on blackened wings. How the enormous undertow—

a million muscles of sea—pulled down on me. And

in the rear-view mirror, the deer tried to get up, her eyes

glazed with tree and earth. And how I was in a hurry

for my vacation and did not stop the car.