Afternoon had barely melted into evening 
when we found the corpse on the side of the road;
a deer, yes?
Yes, deer — 
cracked open like a pomegranate from belly to 
arched neck,
ribcage yawning wide.

I stretch the vowels of your name until 
I feel my own jaw pop. 
How lovely the body is 
when it pushes itself too far;
how beautiful the consequence, 
a boundary within which to feel it, to be it, 
with your open arms questing 
in the uneasy threat of a car head —
light’s yellow pool.  

The blood on the body is not vibrant unless it is
illuminated.  The deer is murky 
except where the light
catches black syrup and shames it red.
I would give you either half of this wishbone,
and help you suck the marrow from the shank.

Crack into this evening with me, take a leg
before the maggots come; a fresh kill leads
very quickly to rot
and not all rot leads to wine.  

Sometimes, all you get is the dead —
and then, you have to decide which part to eat,
tossing dirt over whatever is left behind.  
I have found that the predators are the ones
who know how to hold themselves
still.

There is nothing I would not be for you.
I would follow you, nice and quiet, 
until the flash of violence and slick hot spill.
Wouldn’t you like that; for me to be quiet?
Wouldn’t you prefer that I be nice?