When Your Gun Is Laid To Rest

You'll be placed under the oak tree right next to Uncle Newell
beneath the stand where you set your sights on more than a few
deer walking by, sixteen points, one buck in a million doe.
I will dig the hole myself - all the beads of sweat
every tear dropped
will form a tributary to carry off my sorrow
into the waters surrounding our family's parcel.
Is this what your father wanted?
Is this where your heart rests?
It was never in your chest, judging by the size it could fit four
or five
but you always kept it for the trees fallen across the creek
or over the bridge that you built yourself.
I could never bring myself to stay there with you
it wasn't my world and it wasn't my home - there in the thicket
where the A-frame was hidden unless you knew your footing,
seventy seven paces from the bank
that's where you knew everything would be okay;
even if you didn't make the kill you still took a shot.
I've got my own gun now.
My birds fly differently than yours and my fawn will eat clover
forever with you watching from the tree tops.

Days Are Driftwood

I woke up
this morning it's Friday.
Yesterday was Tuesday,
on Sunday
I was a child.

My days are driftwood
lost somewhere
in the stream
around the bend
down the road from my house.

I swam in it once
as an awkward preteen,
mostly knee high;
at the end
I remember a waterfall.
I stood in the downpour -
thought about the water
pulling down my skin
to make me longer,
stretching me out
until I became the length of the stream.
That was two days ago.

Time just trickles
along with the current,
your life tide
ebbs and flows until
you open your eyes
and it's your last day
on earth: it turns out
to be a flash flood.

Next Wednesday I'll be in the ground,
but Thursday I'll be back.

I turn over in bed
and it's Monday again.
Where did the weekend go?

Last Night

Last night I chased
a fox running rampant
through the woods
behind my home.

I will tell you this:
there is more carnal hunger
that flows through my veins
than human blood.

I caught up with the fox and tore out his throat.
I watched him bleed out and left him for dead.

In my mouth
grew stalactite fangs,
stretched my lips open
enough to encompass the earth --

and from the depths of my cavern
came a howl
that shook the heavens
and shattered the stars.

No Night's Darkness in the Morning Light

I am most gentle in the morning
when I wake,
if I rise with the sun, you
at my side
then surely
I was a blur in the night.

Something secretive, vicious;
drawing you out and feeding
from your goodness.

I was a fury and now,
drunk with echoing slumber
I, like the tranquilized tigress,
could be your pet.

You may do well to remember
that docile sleeping face,
and in memory
my darkness is not so weighted
as my stolen, fleeting aurora grace.