He came too close to evening;
at the lick’s edge,
a flash of flag
shifted dusky landscape
with a queer white.
Patient vigil paid off.
An aiming –a life spent
preparing for split-seconds–
could not miss this accident.
Red blood spurted hard,
a heart shot’s certain sign.
(All shots are heart shots here.)
In new surprise of color
he broke into a hundred yards
of shattered flight.
“It’s no fault of yours
we have a need for meat,”
that rosary of apology
mingles with the wisps
of blood-scented heat.
In awkwardness born
of shouldering new bulks,
I cradle the heart
in bloody hands and carry it home
to hang beyond bears, strange
fruit of Ponderosa pine.
Six nights now, on full stomach,
he shakes his rack in shadows,
breaking into the magic of silence.
I pile cones and needles to flare
firelight while I digest these facts.
In full dark, his wet tongue
strokes my face. It is a warmth
comes too close to night.