Electricity

Steve — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:16:59 +0000

A live wire spit and thrashed over the cab.
The daylight was another goner; it slid
behind a hill, beyond that field and night
was the hup-hup of a motorcycle, the strange
call of a foreign bird. We spent all night
stuck in the cab, smelling cigarettes
smoked weeks ago, deciding if we wanted
each other, if we’d die by morning.
My game was: make myself smaller,
turn into the damp vinyl seat. Stay awake.
When I woke, you were trying to get us
out. If the glass were diamonds. If the blood
were water. If the boot was a hand on my forehead.
Then, I had to see your body, dead
on the hood, half in and half out
of the broken windshield. I could not touch you,
and the second day became another country.

The Head

Steve — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:14:40 +0000

The deer’s skin was mostly intact.
He tried to haul the body into his truck.
His dog barked; his back ached. The bark echoed.
The body slumped back to the road’s shoulder.
He knew what he’d do—saw at the deer’s neck.
With the saw from his tool box, he cut through skin.
He went at it—vein, fascia, adipose, bone.
He was sweat and resentment. His hands turned red.
He worked slowly, neatly.
He wiped up blood with a napkin, then a fistful of rags.
He figured the deer’s brown eyes had fooled a hundred hunters.
The deer’s head, apart from the body, was something.
He let out a low whistle. Only 5 am.
He’d drive east, arrive before his wife.
He looked at his watch again.
He forgot what it had said before.
The head wobbled in the truck’s bed.
The man rejoined the highway traffic.
He knew he’d leave it for his wife to see.
He looked at his watch. Still time.
He’d leave it on the library steps—
Blood on the stairs, soft ears, the eyes—
Thirty minutes before she arrived to work.

Anti- » Deborah Ager Poetry

Electricity

The Head