Red fox, white snow, red, dead rabbit.
Old men lined up, elbow crook, gun rest,
hanging deer, tongues lolling, black and white
photographs don’t disguise blood splotches,
dark gray, thin snow. We ate heart, liver,
and tenderloin from a fresh kill. It is good.
I have eaten these: raccoon, squirrel, goose,
duck, quail, bullfrog, crayfish, elk, bear.
Skinned, eviscerated black bears look like men.
In Chicago street boys shoot each other, in schools
the bullied shoot bullies. A young lover spurned
in a small northern town shot the new lover.
Townspeople burn down the house, cleansed
by smoke ceremony. A man hides in riverbank
wood’s edge, kills teens jumping off the bridge.
His mother said he was upset. Lost his job.
He lived in her basement. She fed him. Both
vegetarians she told the camera. Never hurt a fly.