The flesh of a summer buck in the stew

on the stove of my father’s drinking buddy

gives off a scent of pain fused with cloves

like a hint of red wine that burns residually

or a bruise found next day upon waking.

I close my eyes and feel the hairline fracture

of morning dew cold in the pretty buck’s lungs,

the dirt pasty and black in the dingle beside a stream

as the candelabra of antlers rakes the air.

When my name is called like the bone bead

of an abacus pushed against its row, I enter

the room of plaid-shirted men — overweight

and unshy, they laugh with bottles of beer

like green cocks in their hands. And then

my father, drowning beneath the glass leaves

of the chandelier, recounts the kill.