The spent head of a deer,
hanging from a tree branch,
in the thicket past my father’s
yard –
is left to find maggots and drip-rid
his eyes and flesh.
A full three years and still he hangs,
with a dumb-struck deer smile,
declines decay, keeps his flesh and fur
looks
with hardened gray eyes – waxy, like prunes.
says, “I’m here –
I will not go inside –
to be mutely mounted
in the house beyond that yard.
I
cannot bare it,” and he smiles, nodding
there with me.
I, a visitor to
my father’s hushed house, stand
stoned and protesting with him, the
deer
whose job was just to drip-rid those eyes,
shed his flesh,
lessen to skull and horns
so that, by my father’s
hands, the same hands that held the gun,
can
be mounted on cedar or oak and
prized–
With no eyes nor dumb smile,
just quiet bones on wood
against white walls, over pure pine floors.
No
flesh. No indications of life or
fear or indignation.
I know too well how to
contradict my father’s
demands, but turn at his call and
make
my way across the yard, “why are you
nodding, Bo?”