Trickster

The Ranch

7 The Ranch It’s the first day of Deer hunting season— a red truck waits by the gate, its patience inexhaustible, its men still out in the heat . . . no shots fired so, it’s still hypothetical like the Pig or what remained of the Pig, rotten, emptied from the freezer was hypothetical— until Coyotes yelped all night & tore it to bits. I sleep past you afraid of what we’ll find— a day already limping away “Just wing it,” you say, while at the feeder, Hummingbirds slash & parry while 4-h kids try to sell us the animals they’ve raised, the Sheep & Swine named, tamed, fattened for prize & love—you can’t help but pity them when they say, “I spent the winter with my Sheep . . .” Smoke from a fire up north turns the sky feverish— I can’t work the radio, neither can you so we wait: “the Dane’s a palace dog” you say, “bred to inspire, you can’t help but try 8 to please him” & his master, groaning his way to sleep (further even than sleep) lost in the body he destroyed, he is the one we wait for, lunging for the leather chair, (a halo of grease where his head lay) a Scotch held like a torch as the air parts before him— “I’m just trying to be useful,” I say “Useful’s most misunderstood” he says, “some’s ruined their lives for useful,” he says, as the air parts before him— Red-winged Blackbirds ’ scolding chatter draws it out—the heat agrees, we have turned our backs to the future & we wait— the horse called Sarah who had to be shot has been shot & skinned & left to the Vultures, her legs & head still whole her body just a bloody curve of ribs & pelvis, her eyes gone, her teeth bared & still we wait— Day ripens away from us—“it’s too soon” you say we suck the bitter from the grapes spit them in the orange dust— a Hawk drops out of the blue, Blackbirds scatter & it’s quiet for the first time in days (I notice the bones in your face) 9 call it mercy—everything else argues against us: a night made sleepless by heat the shotgun, breech open (two greasy holes) for rage that cannot find its way to grief— the road is (all blind curves) one black lane, tunneling out the chaparral. ...