The Deer on My Porch

I do not mind the presence of one deer: the one on my porch, made of cast concrete, painted, and left to weather in a garden art yard of a store on the outskirts of Scottsboro. Earlier this summer, I drove to Birmingham to celebrate Virginia's third birthday. Because I had no agenda, I took one of the long ways, turning after Stevenson onto 72 to the town where the nine famous black boys were falsely accused and tried and where today the unclaimed baggage store garners national attention. For me, Scottsboro has become a shopping mecca for concrete birds and gnomes and rabbits. When I saw a shoulder-high buck and his doe off the highway as I sped by, I took the first left, completed a U-eee, and drove straight back. Now when the deer nightly raid my garden for tasty morsels, another deer, a silent one without appetite, stares back. He is my welcome mat, and he always makes me smile.