after Austin Smith
 
finds the lump under her breast
you name every deer –
a town of boys who built fires from
bird bones & dirt under their nails.
Stopping for gas, you predict their futures:
half DJs, half accountants, a small percent
who cure cancer. By the reservoir
you watch as one hands out cigarettes
from behind his antlers, hear him tell the story
about a mother from the city
who drowned her newborn in the lake,
how the herd just stared like falling asleep in church.
You think back to your mother –
rifle across her lap like the wishbone of a bear,
remember how you have never held a gun.
Now another deer talks of body,
a ghost that takes years to shoot down
& fill with clay, a bird trapped in a hardware store
that sleeps on the bandsaw at night.
By morning the deer are getting rowdy
& someone decides to tip over birdfeeders.
Leaving, you finish your cigarette,
lungs filling & emptying like a boy
opening comics & tearing out pages.
You cross one more field & see a doe
painted white, realize this is the work of the boys.
Walking over like a cloud leaving orbit,
she blinks for years & asks to be fed.
You clean the paint from her blaze.
You have never held a gun.