There’s a dead deer in the corn field
Where the hunter has gutted out
A hole to reach the inside
The womb of death
The void of once was
And a fawn walks aimlessly in the woods.

So let October evaporate into November
So bring the truck around the old fence
And pick up that dead deer
So cut two slits behind the knees
And pull upward, upward, upward on the rope
Toward heaven and shave the skin
For winter gloves and cut the meat
For a bursting belly and now all that
Hangs is a disembodied silhouette
From a hundred year old pine tree
So cut the legs, slit the skin
The muscles and the joints
Take a saw and saw away into the marrow
And let the truth fall to the ground again
Hear its loud thump as the dead dies away
And call out the cats from the cement basement
Let them linger in the pugnacious blood
See the blood congeal on their white fur.

So let the hunter be happy with triumph
See him grin in the fading light of evening
So let the poet withdraw into the nature of death
See how gloomy he looks there in the purple dusk.