Impact

Does a word in poetry count the same as a word in prose?
Time slows down in a poem--we see every detail in a scene
more vividly,care is taken, the normal flow of time is disrupted.
The buck strolling near my son’s school, then darting in our direction.
“Remember, it’s a wild animal,” someone says as it disappears into the woods.
Or, driving down a four lane city street during morning rush hour,
when a deer starts jumping around in traffic, everyone driving 40,
but my memory is a series of photographs, each of the deer in a different lane
(He finally made it across the road unscathed)

Years earlier, my dad was driving on a quiet highway in the fog in early dawn,
When, at the top of a steep hill, he suddenly found his windshield
covered in deer, cracked, the car totaled, the carcass knocked to the side of the road.

Perhaps a word in a poem--listen to it, this word, the syllables you
hear right now--does have a greater impact

Like soft, delicate hairs pressed into a windshield.