Remember the time you watched your uncle

prepare to enter the woods to hunt? The uncle

hunted with a bow and arrow, he greased

his boots for waterproofing, he wore

a brilliant poppy for a hat. You did not go

to see the breath billow from the mouth

of the uncle past the brush of the brown moustache, 

or pause when he paused, knee raised, knuckles

loose, ears prickling. You stayed at home 

and hoped for the deer and the uncle to miss 

each other, to dance in different parts of the woods, 

you didn't know how hunting worked. You imagined 

saltlicks and deerblinds and crooks of trees 

and cracks of branches. It was all out of books.
 
The books fell down around them, man and animal,
 
a flush of russet leaves, and landed without sound.

You went on turning pages, and they went on

stepping silently, and the arrow waited, eager

for the string to touch its lip, for the air to dare

to bite. In you and in the deer and in the uncle

the hot blood ran after its own scents, trailed

by its own pursuers, the hearts made their fists

and opened their mouths over and over.

In the uncle's hand, the arrow felt

indifference, as the knives and bullets

and needles and steering columns all feel

indifference. We are dry, now we are wet.
 
It is warm, but it will soon be cold, the body,
 
the blood, the idea of you hovering there

as the last of the life leaks away. Where

does the warmth go? We try to track it down,

to find it lurking in the dark trees, coax it

into sunpools, hope it stares at us

with enormous eyes. We want to touch

its little feet, to turn the soft tongue from side

to side. We move through snow and bear up

under wind. We blink the frost from the lashes,
 
we flex the thumb going numb in the chill. We want

the beating thing that lies beyond the reach

of our barbed touch. We want chance to spin

the dial, we want the arrow to thread

the gnarled trunks and hit the heat in the heart —
We run to it, bracken snapping, shouts

of wonder in the ringing air. We hold the heat

a moment, its muzzle wet, and then we feel it

moving off, a shuffling shadow with no edges

cast by a cloud that is not there. And you look up

and the uncle looks up too and the deer

with its amber iris stares along with you

and everyone sees sky and endless space

and the unstoppable cold comes dropping.