is how you carry it, how it is; for example, the turkeys which seemed ordinary—grazing
through the piled brush for butternuts, all head and feathers, then taking the shot
because they didn’t see you standing on a stump,
one dying outright, the other baffled, half rising in the brown autumn light and batted
to the ground—how ungainly large they made the afternoon, heaping up out of slopes,
trees, torn pieces of clouds
an excitement. When you stopped running, you took them from under your jacket,
where they had kept shifting and threatening to slip out,
still with a bit of warmth in them, and grasped one in each hand
by its horned feet like handles to steady yourself, leaning into the
land’s steepness and accord, growing used to them, their difference.
ISSUE: Winter 1994