Kernel

When we cut the deer apart,
back in Ohio, in full camo,
we shook the old king’s antlers
to summon more Miller beer
from the F-150, celebrating
a day we did something right.
The deer had become pests
and the license to kill as many
as our truck could legally carry
served as the start of something
bigger than Monday thru Friday
ever could be, and different
somehow than the Super Bowl
because we pulled the trigger,
we scalped that old granddad,
and we'll always have a photo
of all of us, together, on top,
one foot each on the dead
body of the buck, faces tough.

Then, I got took with the anima,
that old devil religion, spirits
inside every dog, each weed,
like today’s sunrise meant a lot,
a world waiting to be hacked
to find who's inside what,
as if I’m a probability and you
are launched the same, but
spun differently somehow,
everything all shot out in dice
on a gambler’s boast, velocity
irregular as a corn kernel
on a hot plate--living soil
or lifeless pavement—a sealed
question put to all things,
and we're left to create and
love until we burst in answer.
You can devour all the life
off this rock only to find
we ate our only way to pray.
Doctor and priest both agree
on just how sick and cursed
I am, trying to get exorcised
or medicated out of my head,
while animals jeer, and shoot me
visions of a lone boulder trekking
impossibly across Death Valley.