SHOOTING BUCK by Lydia Downey

Lydia Downey
SHOOTING BUCK

Peeking around the cliff, I
meet my father’s eyes. The

horizon’s glowing haze &
morbid curiosity as I stretch

my palm over the Tetons
to haul the buck back

to safety from the metal
clicks of huddled persons.

Father must not notice my
fragile body off the cliff,

scraping my hands red to
meet brown lagoons alone

in the powder sugar cliffs
where he will become

solidified of Wyoming.
Let me begin again. Will

me to come forward &
stand proud amidst

the death of does & fawns.
Show me how to shave

the antlers plastered to
your skull to pop

like a tick & cluster blooms
of coal for me to shave part

of your body as a necklace
to carve on my clavicle.

I have watched you migrate
alone to suspend time in

Douglas firs, braid pine
needles into your coat &

lick the blood pouring
out of your open mouth.

Buck, stomp one last time
before disintegrating to

cartilage & hung on wooden
walls. Your morphed body

Reminds me of the memory
of the buck. Looks like he

will plead as he lifts his
head & bleats back to

dead soil & paved highways
on the way to bow in the face

of a bullet, gun residue rifled
in the shotgun of my eye

socket. Heart palpitations,
pocketed bleats back to

father. Farther, father.
Farther, father, father.


Lydia Downey is a graduate student at Columbia University, receiving her MFA in poetry. Their work can also be found in Passengers Journal, Northern Lights, and Vital Sparks.

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