• • • •

one deer

snow flecks clinging
to bristled pelt,
paces among
yellowed tufts of grass, long
left behind from summer,
probing their tips through
crisp layers of ice,

ducks her head under
spindly stray branches;
heaves her weight against
the trunk of an elm

one deer
carcass
bloodied
on a cement garage floor
waiting
to be divided
frozen

one wife

stitches a colour-coded quilt
loses the needle between the baseboard
and curled linoleum
squints for sight
of it through dusk light

under the linoleum
peeling away from floor and wall

hides aspirin and an overdrawn
bank book, blue and white
bills, stagnant water,
stretching winters, loneliness, a
dog licking castration scars,
damp firewood,
a sagging mattress, and

the needle finding her finger
when she bends to pick it out

one husband

his arm crooked
a plaid V formation of forearm and upper arm
weighted butt of a rifle
nestled in the flannel hollow of his shoulder
whorls of stubble bristling against the stock
eyes peering through a curtain of fir
trees and up into a grey sky
at a mallard silhouette

in front of the cattails,
frozen still in swamp water, frogs’
bulging eyes visible through brown ice,
a gunshot sounds
scatters
a murder
of crows

and her figure, bent over and alone
inside, piecing together a blanket
to keep her shivering body warm
come the January dawn