The American hunters
came from Boston when
the skies were gray and
the leaves were gone
from the maples,
jolly men in red hats
and plaid shirts who
drove “new cahs,”
smoked Camel cigarettes
and threw strange
bottles into the ditches.
They shot deer with rifles
that rang from the hills and
reverberated over the corn fields.
We stood in our tracks
and counted the blasts
until the last trace
of the last echo
died in the darkened spruces.
We never saw, we only heard.
Then followed the ceremony
of rum and ropes at the camps,
and the strapping of carcasses
to the hoods of
Buicks and Fairlanes
for the pilgrimage
home to New England.
We counted the points
on the antlers
when they stopped for gas
at the corner store,
praising the bucks
and praising the does,
sharing the happy laughter.
The fur was rough, close up,
no longer sleek.
We stared at eyes that
that stared back at us,
and the blood already hard
on the shining fenders.
© 2009
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