Roey Leonardi

I.  
Step where I step,
he said, quick,
quiet over oak root.
The hushed path rose
to meet him.
By footfall and rifle glint,
rustle of hoof
and pulp of blood,
he led me deep
where the gut-shot buck
had made its briary bed.
Even from the shining
back of his scalp,
I knew his face,
shame-shadowed
at his own poor aim,
at the animal’s pain
grown shadow-long
with the fall of dusk.
Three times we neared
the deer, and each
it heard our ragged breath
and stood and lumbered
beyond sight.

My father says to pick a beer.
Outside, two men in yellow coats
hose mud from a reef of oysters
to be priced and sold by the bucketful.
The owner’s a fellow named Tadpole.
Lives up Mosquito Creek
and raises labradors, without which
the basin’s fallen mallards
would vanish to the marsh
and the mouths of its gators,
which wear feathers in their teeth.
Write that down, says my father,
who knows a beautiful thing
when it slithers over his path.
I’ve seen him point a pistol
at a coiled cottonmouth.

I watch the winding creek.
There’s a body
knows how to catch light.Goes all gold
from tongue to inky tail.
One creek’s water spillsinto that of another
easy as a cottonmouth
twists round its mate.You ever seen them at it?
In spring,
lazy under oakshade.They come so close
you can’t tell which
is opening.There’s a love
that’s holy. All giving
and no take.