Finding neither rabbits nor fowl,
Morris took aim at any creature
that scrambled along the ground
or leaped in the early summer oaks
Lester let hang his single shot rifle over
his forearm, and tiring of the afternoon,
and the blasts of Morris’s 4 ten shotgun,
climbed uphill into the woods
until he reached a small circle
in a clearing of feathered grass
As he stepped into it, an object flashed,
collided with the middle of his forehead,
flattened him to gaze up blank-eyed
at the speckled firmament
Faraway, he heard Morris’s 4 ten
still making random mischief
Unable to move a bone, he slept and dreamed
blazing swaths of light as meteors give off
crisscrossing above him
After a blank space, Lester,
a small jagged cut sorely coagulating
between his wayward brows,
staggered alone into the kitchen
of their squatter’s shack,
not knowing exactly how he got there,
and swore to Morris’s girlfriend, Gertrude:
“No, maam,” he had not chugged him
no licker out there, “No, maam, neven a swig,”
but truth be told he had been popped
smack-dab between the eyeballs
by a lone, wild-assed bird that was itself
truly drunk or just plain loco,
and if that wasn’t it, what was it?