Sara Schraufnagel
Shelly's Stepdad
She couldn't love him if his hands
weren’t tore up from something:
a hunting bow, taxidermy, fishing knife.
Climbing broken arm favors in the heat of July,
whiskey on his breath from the night before,
camouflage bound. Hunting what his daddy hunted,
and their sons if she’ll give him one,
and she did eventually. He visits sometimes,
even when he’s had one too many. Mouth dry, the world spinning.
To be hunted and to hunt, he decides who and what.
The ones who stay wear blood on their teeth.
The ones who leave never see the way
they hold the deer by its antlers, the glassy eyes
that knew its fate before it was born.
He will hold up the body while it’s still warm,
warm like his side of the bed before she notices he’s off to make a kill,
to find things that walk silently in the low-growing thickets.
He’s a hunter. She knew that before he ever told her.
weren’t tore up from something:
a hunting bow, taxidermy, fishing knife.
Climbing broken arm favors in the heat of July,
whiskey on his breath from the night before,
camouflage bound. Hunting what his daddy hunted,
and their sons if she’ll give him one,
and she did eventually. He visits sometimes,
even when he’s had one too many. Mouth dry, the world spinning.
To be hunted and to hunt, he decides who and what.
The ones who stay wear blood on their teeth.
The ones who leave never see the way
they hold the deer by its antlers, the glassy eyes
that knew its fate before it was born.
He will hold up the body while it’s still warm,
warm like his side of the bed before she notices he’s off to make a kill,
to find things that walk silently in the low-growing thickets.
He’s a hunter. She knew that before he ever told her.
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Sara Schraufnagel is a poet living in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her work has appeared in Forum Magazine, Sonora Review, The Fourth River, Literary Mama, New Plains Review, Slipstream, among others.
Sara Schraufnagel is a poet living in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her work has appeared in Forum Magazine, Sonora Review, The Fourth River, Literary Mama, New Plains Review, Slipstream, among others.