the gunshot
crisp, startling
a radiating crackle
floating on the unusually warm autumn air

my dog bolts for the house, and once inside, takes cover under the desk – this is a natural response to explosives

fear, confusion, rage, sorrow course through my marrow — we are made of the same stuff

then i remember that deer-stalking-luring-and-killing with a gun season started today

i’d seen the dignified six-point buck head south earlier,
the same direction of the blast / i realize that he may be dead, now

then i remember that i haven’t seen the
doe and her playful and curious fawns
in over a month’s time

on my way to the highway entrance ramp,
i avoid the main roads
where the bodies of two deer lay dead
a half mile apart
/ i pretend they can’t be, that they aren’t my familiars /

the deer always seem to be lying just barely off the road

do they collapse and die there identically — or does someone drag them there by their legs or antlers; are there protocols for this?
what does the weight of a dead deer body or dead human body feel like in the hands? are the dead heavier? would i be able to drag a deer or human body? maybe — in my heyday
i have only ever held dead rabbits, squirrels, birds, fish in my own two hands

then i remember that our first dog was euthanized at home, in the back yard, in the June Sun, but it was not me who lifted and carried his body away / why didn’t i carry him? back then, i was in my strength heyday.

---

the pain that the killed experience is something i cannot unimagine
dying with
such force,
such violence,
from the blunt cold metal of a car in November
in Michigan
or the pierce of the hot metal of a bullet in November
in Michigan, in Gaza

and the absolute confusion of their last breaths
when they were so alive just seconds ago

---

as i drive, i spot deer/tree stands in private woods exposed by continuously falling leaves and in corn fields, now, but belatedly, harvested because of October rains and snow

i honk my horn rhythmically as i drive to sabotage the hunters in those stands, and to warn deer along the road of my passage

i am, unashamedly, the mysterious, local loon in the black truck

i hope they missed their shot because of me

run, deer, run // run into the sky

---

all the effort and energy to court, to mate, to gestate, to feed and forage, to birth, nurse, protect, hide, and teach her offspring

gone in a moment on asphalt, concrete, dirt, sand

from us mammalian mothers

deer mothers
possum mothers
coyote mothers
bear mothers

and human mothers

mothers of the killed
mothers of the murdered
mothers of the slaughtered

human mothers of the voluntary killers

the stalker, the hunter, the soldier

their children posing for photos with

the dead children of other mothers

with looks of accomplishment
or gross humor
or pride
or victory

on their once-human faces /

they became and unbecame human //

---

i am so helpless at this world
so angry at it,
so afraid for it,
so sorry for it, about it

across oceans and miles and in these and other woods, i witness them, and
i am humbled by their truer lives,

and i feel inauthentic, less real, less alive

but then i remember
right here, right now, outside my door
i can keep setting out food,
i can keep setting out water,
i can keep the night dark ,
i can keep the day quiet,
i can see you, i can recognize you

i can honor you in my poems and meet you in our dreams