Bambi A protective and loving doe escorted her twin fawns to the pile of corn to eat and stood guard with protruded ears on high alert sniffing for danger. In my childhood, I witnessed the deer my father shot on his annual hunting trip when he dragged a dead doe and a dead fawn through the outdoor cellar doors, down the ashen cement steps to rest in the basement between the glazed coal-burning furnace and my father’s long wooden workbench with a red metal vise attached at the

Don’t Breathe As my father tossed my blanket over me in my bottom bunk in the middle of the night discarded as an empty can on the highway I felt like a hollering creek of repressed rage ready to implode. Giggling “Daddy, Daddy” earlier as he lifted my pajamas contradicted my held breath pretending I wasn’t there until he left the room to return to safety in my fragile orb. —Gerry Sasse #GerrySasse