Son of the Hunter

The deer hung his bronze head.
Dad stood me beside his bronzeness
       like a member of the family.
I let my picture be taken,
My eyes wandering down his stretched
       hind legs tied with wire to the rafters;
My eyes wandering into the red opening
       that was once a hot stomach;
My eyes meeting the frosted stare
       of deer eyes browned over
       with the last vision of pine forest
       and rock falls.
Even after the camera was put away
       and the hunters left the barn,
My eyes continued to wander
       and to stop and stare
       at the great silence of coarse fur,
       the wide arching horns.
I wanted to crawl outside my eyes
       to curl up in the open circle
       of those wide horns,
       to be pierced as the deer had been pierced.
I wanted to feel the pain
       of that golden deer.
I wanted to run my teeth against
       the roughness of the horns
       as they entered his head,
       knobby and touched with his blood.
       I wanted to be embroidered with his fur
              so I would never be cold again.
       I wanted to animal,
              and I wondered how he cried
              when he fell off his mountain,
       and if I put my finger in the bullet hole
       would he breathe again.

James McGrath

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