Quarry

The felled deer strapped to a truck in the South Bronx
was beyond pity passing through the week-old snow—
a soot-flecked spectacle we trailed towards the Triboro
then lost. I’m not sure now that it was even there
and not what the eye conjured out of its magic hat—
deer hunters in the Bronx, who’d credit that?
How serene the body seemed before the hereafter
of the maggot and the fly. How sweet it was to drive
behind that hearse, its bumper almost kissing mine,
and every car on the parkway part of the cortege.
Show me yours and I’ll show you mine, whispers death,
nicotine-yellowed fingers unbuttoning his fly.
I am the bullet laying eggs under the skin.
I am the snow as it banks up behind the eyes.