First Iris, photo by Radical Ann Porter

First Iris
Originally uploaded by radiann.

Ode to the Two Pointers

Hanging the pipes between our clothes line
and theirs, a hand could borrow sugar
from our open windows, that close,
a two-pointer swung from his haunches, eyes all froze.
We came home running to see what was shot,
heard it all the way down by Old Man Riley's garage,
a two pointer, not a doe. Everyone heard it.
It was big news, big game and there he was,
draped over the squash and winter iris
looking out like that, just looking.
A pressure cooker steamed inside
the kitchen window, it tooted and hissed
as the buck waited to be butchered.
Takes a long time to cut up a deer like that,
and longer still, to bag one.
Times were pretty lean, the winters pretty cold.
God is as an animal, our fortress.