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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AFTER THE FALL, by BRUCE WOODS First Line: A coolin moose is more than dead Subject(s): Hunting; Moose; Hunters | |||
A coolin moose is more than dead. Like new love or revolution, it sets events in motion. Some things simply can't be left the way they are. Unknit from flesh with busy sketches of blade, the hide, gristle tough, thick as suburban turf, peels. We slash gashes in it to grab hold, pull to aching. The sound of skining is both wet And brittle. Little clutchings of fat and Fiber pop and crackle free, snap within the slow slurp of this rough undress. And then the boning out. No science to this, not with biting bugs coming clouds now. We chop free fists of flesh, then long gourds of it. Wet meat is all we mean to carry out of here. Eight loads of it, maybe70 pounds each. Packframes splay our hipbones, I waddle with the effort. Finally, through the pain, the mule mind wakes, shakes its dumb head, goes on. What we leave behind could have been a dinosaur; the bristling ridge of a spine, a ribcage big as a bathtub. White on puddle red, it is this autumn's Parthenon. One thing done. Copyright © Bruce Woods http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm Prarie Schooner is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the campus-based literary journals. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LAMENT OF QUARRY by LEONIE ADAMS KILLDEER by KENNETH SLADE ALLING THE YOUNG FOWLER THAT MISTOOK HIS GAME by PHILIP AYRES A POEM ABOUT THE HOUNDS AND THE HARES by LISEL MUELLER A DIM DOORWAY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |
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