Temple Cone
Cord
"The deer in that beautiful place lay down their bones. I must wear mine."
- Robinson Jeffers
The two who'd brought him left over the rise lurching through withered stalks,
Of goldenrod and foxglove long rifles branching from their shoulders withdrawing
Through shadow the grass darkening for minutes he heard their gumboots
Fretting the dew-sotted grass a thick-quilled beast crossing the field
For the purlieu of the opposite woods ghosts now visible holding the night in place
Gray light broke hard, clear to his right a cusp illuminating the line of earth
So the long watch began breathing slow trying to drive the rasp from his throat
While crickets shutter-clicked nearby the premorning cold pulling him back to a dully remembered place
He turned into the woods aching hands outstretched touch-walking
Through the screen small pines, a poplar in the clearing its spire white in the bluing
Found the plank nailed crosswise with rail spikes mounted reached into the limbs
Like a child who waits to be lifted watching the boards revert to empty signposts
On a path where nothing would pass the outer leaves rimed with wasp-papery frost
Thin enamel crinkling melting under fingertips he found the case in a bough
The cartridge box in a rough bole cardboard mushy from morning damp thirty cold points
The sky now fired faint sapphire his boots squelched when he curled his toes when the branches sprayed
Dew on his neck the sharp angle of a nightjar's wings crossing then disappearing
Had the forms not shifted below he might never have known morning passed
One hoof scraped a log in the quivering pause he found his hand already dropping the bolt in place
Ahead of two does a buck pressed spectral as mercury dust a rotten chaplet of velvet
Garlanding the dozen points of its antlers whisking against its bowed skull
He couldn't believe their thickening coats heavy ribs the way black eyes sucked in
The whole world so he began counting believing a pattern would catch the small gear of history
Turning in his heart when the buck ghosted past his tree and stiffly he rose to his knees
Smelling the musky fur keeping sight of the clearing edge where they'd turn their flanks
He clutched the stock against his shoulder working it into his flesh then the buck was gone
And he dropped from the stand circling out a ripple found the blood trail fifty feet in
Kept his eyes lowered, reading the black spills steaming on leaves felt his own blood course
When the spoor darkened left the trail whenever it lightened crossing and crossing his path
The quiet touched him through limbs and webs blinding sunlight amid shadow
He heard his own ragged breath then the buck's soft blowing as it leaned against an oak
Trying to right itself flee unable gray numbles coiled among twigs
The boy knelt slid back the bolt hoped he'd chambered another round but knew
As one knows an unseen fracture he had not then made himself walk when the buck slumped
Swabbing its nose made himself believe that the buck rose on strong legs leapt
That there were no looped guts only a cord weathering in the brush a strand of cellophane
Not the pulse and shit of this live deer whose skull he stove until his hands bled from the clenched rifle sights
And he dreamt the buck flew yes, it flew then he was gone, running two miles
To a creek's edge his breath glistening the water buffed obsidian wrinkling along low rocks midstream
In the chill he wondered how easy it was to surrender someone did each winter to the lull of cold
He'd heard of old drunks frozen to statues of coal-miners' widows their fires unstoked
Such loneliness a storm that blew open the door the heart letting in snow wind night
So when the men began calling across the creek his breath came quick a cord
Bridling his mouth bit and bridle of blood and song sweet, bitter bond of mastery
<< return to the Table of Contents for New Series #1: Summer 2008, Volume 1 Number 1 |
