Blessings on the hunter and the hunted
whose iconography of rifle and bone
whined and hissed and sparked and charred,

Deirdre was almost ebony. She washed your boxers
and folded them neatly inside your backpack.
When I came home from the Cape, you'd painted our bedroom

The day Jim stalked the tomcat between rows of bonsai,
I asked: What kind of gun is that? He said: Air.
And snuffed a squirrel as proof or demonstration.

Oh transcendent, this aqua blue and all these health nuts
running back and forth hold nothing—no sea gnome,
no salt to scour your bones clean—only placidity

If the man who called you nigger in Dominick’s parking lot
had only dialed 1-800-882-Mary earlier today,
he may have been a better boyscout. I bet

You were egalitarian with the sleaze you perpetrated, loving
transsexual and coed alike, so shy in your approach, no one
suspected your blue eyes. And when you sat barechested,