Hunter
by Maura Bobbitt
Grey dawn, and the musk of a hickory fire
lingers still in the fibers of my jacket.
The trees are bare, but not quite asleep.
As you creep through the brush, seeping
as silent and wild as spilled water, the grace
of your gait says man is meant for this.
As I follow, the warning snap of my stepping
answers that I am not.
But still we continue, because it's November
and this is Texas, and you are my father,
and you wanted a son,
and this is the land that I will inherit to manage
when you are gone.
Once you have gone, this steel in my hands
will be locked away for good. Eventually
the deer will forget the sound of our voices
and the haunted house will put on its chorus
of discordant groaning for no one but the rats.
But for now we hunt, because you grew up
in black and white, and you're a good man
and we only ever could speak with footsteps,
and even with words, you would never believe
that deer don't exist to be eaten.
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