In the house there were always two

white deep freezers packed pretty

decent with red meat. Deer season,

the hunters and the deer would satisfy

rent in season, by meat if not by cash.

It was May, I was fifteen and we smelled

fifteen or so throughout the warm insides

of the man-handled school bus, when pops

steers quick and clear to dodge the deer

and Shirlean yells, “I didn’t even know it was

deer season.” As if deer only lived so they

could be killed during deer season.

What’s a deer outside of deer season,

except a reason for deer season?