In the Sonoran Desert, my brother hands me a revolver. In place of tenderness he tells me to kill a woodpecker. It’s injured, on its back like a sunbather thrashing in a gravel bed.
Overhead the Kentucky sky was clear and went on forever. I don’t really remember how we parted or where I went after, only that he wanted to stay awhile, that at some point he hugged me, tucked a cig behind his ear, and started down toward...
I drive out Old Frankfort Pike past the ditch by the creek where you pulled off on New Year’s Day to pick from the mud that Jack Russell with swollen nipples and bring her back to the farm.