Even Good Boys Get a Little Bloody Sometimes

Fallen Deer by the Dam

The dog is eating the deer.
He’s a good boy. He’s got a collar.
He’s going to go home bell-trodden

and lick his human’s arm with a gentle tongue
or so we assume. The deer doesn’t have her belly.
That’s as close as we can look at what happened.

When we call by the screaming dam, the dog rises.
We don’t know his name. We don’t know what makes
him listen. We kiss air. We bark no.

The light shows us sharper light—scarlet face
disappearing ballet bones. Her breathing face.
He’s clearing the woods slow. His hunger

is about taking what’s there, and he’s not quick,
and he’s not clean, and the animals know this
about each other. We’re the ones who are calling

him off, calling him toward a place we assume
is home where, we assume, his dish of kibble
sits ready by a back door.

But the deer—she’s waiting with him.
He doesn’t leave her. The balance is bloodier
than we think. Remember: He’s already full.

I Teach My Brother How to Make Applesauce

Let me bring us to life. We are ten.
Your teeth go fever-bright from smiling

and your hair goes curly in the heat
like our mother’s, and your skull bones

have hardened, and your milk teeth all fell
out. Our little sister runs, shirtless, bowl cut

and bare chest among trees, and we’re picking fruit.
Brother, doesn’t it feel good to grow? Doesn’t it

feel good to see our parents gather cores dimpled
with sunspots? They say here, eat, and you travel

to them, growing still, take a tart-shelled bite
right from their hands. There’s only so much to say

about death. When we step through silt cores, the bees
claw to attention. The summers keep ending, sharper

than the last. The apples keep dropping. The apples
just are. But in the world I make, there are answers.

Let us take the apples into the kitchen for sauce.
Crack them at the throat. A little sugar.

More cinnamon. Brother, if you stay you’ll know
how bitter it all becomes, for a time. Long enough

in the pot and the skins will split, almost
sweet. First we boil. Then we wait.