I remembered my body being rolled and tossed in the leaves
as the neighbor’s dog shook blood from the holes in my jeans.
I remembered feeling the bulge of dirt beneath my nails
as grass roots gave way and I thrilled with the thought of dying,
of being dead.
I remembered burning the feathered, black bodies of birds
behind the big oak at the edge of our property that bore obscenities
scratched in with a pocket knife I had stolen from my father’s tackle box.
The stray cat I had coaxed with a bowl of milk.
how the cinder block from the creek split his skull in two equal halves
as the last bit of milk swirled with red into a rosy pink.
I remembered cutting into my own flesh with a paring knife
from my mother‘s apron – the warm draw of blood
like cherry filling oozing from the seams of a freshly cut piece of pie.
I remembered holding my best friend
beneath the brown, stained waters of Sulfur Pond
the smell of shore mud stirred from the struggle.
I remembered finding my grandfather’s German Mauser
and seating its muzzle against the roof of my mouth,
working its smooth action as an erection warmed
the insides of my thighs.
I remembered rummaging through the wreckage of fall woods
where my father and I once hunted together,
clad in red flannel and camouflage as we stalked through thickets and spoils
abiding an indifference responsible for the shame and secrets of most men.
We warmed our hands between our legs and spoke brokenly
as two cups of coffee steamed together as one.
I returned to those woods late last week, ten years later, like a faint echo
frozen at the foot of a double-trunked oak,
overlooking a flat of persimmons whose fruit laid spoiling on the forest floor.
I spotted the shape of a man.
I didn’t mistake him for a brother, for I never had one
and if it had been my father his feet would have fallen
heavier and further apart.
I raised my rifle – looking through the scope
where simple division was calculated by crosshairs
where his head was divided into four equal parts.
He crossed over a small creek, then turned toward me – lighting a cigarette.
He had the stenciled face of a man who sold insurance and vacationed
with his wife and kids somewhere warm, somewhere else.
He didn’t belong there.
I steadied my forearm on my knee and sealed shut, my left eye
so there’d be no witnesses.
With my teeth, I pulled the glove from my right hand
so I could feel the sting of the trigger against the pink tip of my finger.
As I clicked the safety forward and slowly squeezed the 5lb trigger
I thrilled at the thought of killing and being killed.
