the knife saws back along skin’s edge seaming its rent robes

back together the blood crawls back up the groin testicles unhack

blood the frost gives it back up and keeps giving it back up

the dogs spit up chunks of bloody deer heart unsnarling

and the barking comes back in their chest as nothing but rattle

the comealong wench cranks back down the hook out the tendon

the antler-crowned head thumps the ground my fourteen

yearold back shoving him through the mudrut back to the truck

flinging him bodily in the bed back down the dirt road

tires popping rocks bringing down the dust daddy’s cigarette

unflings itself comes back burning through the cracked window

like a small torch that can’t burn bright enough and won’t die out

plumes of steam swirl back into my mouth thick tongue back

the paleness comes back the redness leaving like the snags of cloud

slipping silently breaking over the back of wolverton mountain

back to the stand the percussive thud melts out of the air echoing

my daddy’s grin leaks away that rare that possum grin it’s gone

flecks of blood explode back into the deer chest back into the hung skeleton

back into the string of veins gun barrel chokes on its white hot cough

my finger untrembles lets go the trigger bring back the big breath

unclench the gun unload the bullet unclimb the stand draw back the call’s grunt

until I’m just a boy walking under a winter-ash sky behind my daddy

saying how the clouds hang like catfish heads on a trotline

James Dunlap