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?