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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