Finding neither rabbits nor fowl,
Morris took aim at any creature
that scrambled along the ground
or hopped high in early summer oaks
Lester let hang the barrel of a single shot 22
over his forearm,
and tiring of the afternoon
and the blasts of Morris’s four ten,
climbed uphill into the woods
until he reached a small circle
of feathery grass in a clearing
As he stepped into it, an object flashed,
collided with the middle of his forehead,
flattened him to gaze up wild eyed at speckless blue
Faraway, he heard Morris’s shotgun
still making random mischief
Unable to move a bone, he slept and dreamed
flights of birds crisscrossing above him
After a blank space, Lester,
a small jagged cut sorely coagulating
above his wayward brows,
staggered into the kitchen of the shack,
not knowing exactly how he got there,
and swore to Morris’s girlfriend, Gertrude,
he had chugged no licker out there in the woods,
but truth be told he had been popped
smack dab between the eyes
by a lone, wild assed bird that was itself
truly drunk or just plain old loco
At this telling, Gertrude gazed
out the window above the sink
as if to search for Morris trudging
up the muddied gravel road,
gun barrel scatter slung over his shoulder,
wailed a long high-pitched lament
of hunter and hunted,
the sound of such grieved Lester no end