Before the hunt, a photograph.
Ballcap crooked on the brow—
green field with yellow deer in crest—
and clenched between elbow and rib
the rifle’s stock. I am eight
in my brother’s hand-me-downs,
hair still blond and babyish.
It slips from every rubber band.
I walk the fencerow with the men,
blaze-orange vest draped like a gown.
I am too young to have the gun
in season when we are afield
and watch the dog in her own orange
tack through stalks cut at the shins.
Between the rows, scattered gold
kernels gleam hard as teeth.
On the ground, they’re hard to see
picking through the combine’s waste
until they scatter like the shot
fanned out in its sudden spray.
Two or three contract like hearts
and sink like stones in downy heaps
the dog knows it must softly grasp
and drop unpunctured at our feet
except they are already sieved:
little nodes the tongue will find
and drop bright against the plate.
Lead or steel, zinc or tin—
the string of pearls the wounds can make.
Note: Scheduling complications prohibited us from being able to post audio with this poem. Apologies to our readers who look forward to experiencing our poetry that way.
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This article appeared in the February 2026 print edition of the magazine.
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