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Hunter Mnemonics
  1 When I was little, I didn't understand why wax paper rustling in some corner made me fix upon the town like a glint of water or the muffled barking of a dog. It was quiet here, a silence blunt and practical that tied its laces. And Al's was no name but a joke the trapper painted across the cover of the well. I found tin cans and a pair of antlers that almost brought back the tang of your shot, the monotony of its tuft of smoke. When we got in the clear, we'd reach the cabin. I imagined red plaid beckoning us forward, milkweed's limbs akimbo. But I didn't understand why Jerusalem was just a few miles up the road, or why the town was weaker than its well. So I drew down a flap of the grey sky. Behind barred windows hunters rested quietly, made for themselves a different stillness: the woods could never close over these few. I strained my likeness from them—peeling wax paper from a corner pocked with leaves— the way I strained to protect Jerusalem as I thought through the town. When I was little, I didn't understand and stood like the cabin unlaced and cold. A sheet of wax paper rustled inside the cover of the well. I tied my laces. 2 I'm stillness like the plastic nailed over the scullery of rats sleeping beside the empty door frame. In the woods, we followed tire tracks. You told me pink checkered sneakers were the dry goods of epidemics, while I thought they were my steadfast red plaid jacket of the hunter. When we bumped fingers against one lichen-covered branch, I imagined a humming in the metal. People only went to Jerusalem if it rose magically from the rats’ scudding. A dream brings back the touch of your fingers, degrades the rats, their ointments. We stood in the stillness and waited for guns. No one went to Jerusalem for it was here, under the cover of the well. 3 I picked out a pair of plastic horses though I didn't need more animals. I knew why no one restocked Jerusalem, as hunter's meat was hardly a cash cow. But I asked aloud why no one went to Jerusalem and could you untie your fingers and the knotted antlers (they didn't belong to us). I imagined red plaid shadow-antlers tic-tacked across bandaged windows: these tokens of warning like a dog's bark. The way was rutted with remembrance. As you smiled gently, your dirt road wound into Jerusalem, with no monotonous barking from afar. Pink checkered sneakers were cheap and for me. We followed tire tracks, seeds too wet to parachute. Your smoke rings told me not to hurry. Being little, I didn't understand beads on a string or the plaid jacket or even milkweed pods hanging empty, at the same time someone lived here through the trees. Blue and quiet, I wanted to feel the brittle arc of hawks, and hearing of it was ready to look up. My sneakers warned off the rats. › Order Books |
