Crunching Gravel Read Online Free PDF Page B

head for the dogs to eat—
    my mother disliked head meat.
    The liver, steaming, monochrome,
    quivered with eyes.
    We took it home.
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    I went to my room.
    Tongues licked my neck.
    I spread my arms,
    threw back my head.
    The tendons of a heel snapped.
    What had I lost?
    bit, bridle, rage?
    Preacher in his pulpit
    fiddling, vestments aflame.
    He, blazing, stepping down to me.
    Hot piss came.
    I knelt on the floor,
    bent over, head in arms.
    Piss washed down, more.
    I clasped my loins,
    arm crossed over arm.
    And I cried
    loving my guts,
    O vulnerable guts,
    guts of creatures.
The Sow’s Head
    The day was like pewter.
    The gray lake a coat
    open at the throat. The border
    of trees—frayed mantle collar,
    hairs, evergreen. The sky dun.
    Chilling breeze. Hem of winter.
    I passed the iodine-colored brook,
    hard waters open,
    the weight of the sow’s head
    an ache from shoulder to waist,
    the crook of my elbow numb,
    juices seeping through
    the wrapping paper.
    I was wrong to take it.
    There were meals in it.
    I would, Dad said, assist
    with slaughter, scrape off
    hair, gather blood.
    I would be whipped for
    thieving from the dogs.
    I crossed ice
    that shivered, shone.
    No heads below, none;
    nor groans—only water, deep,
    and the mud beds of frogs asleep
    not a bush quivered,
    not a stone. Snow.
    Old snow had formed
    hard swirls, bone
    and planes with
    windwhipped ridges
    for walking upon;
    and beneath, in the deep,
    bass quiet, perch whirling
    fins, bluegills, sunfish,
    dim-eyed soaking heat.
    Mud would be soft down there,
    rich, tan, deeper than a man:
    silt of leeches, leaves
    tumbling in from trees,
    loon feces, mulch-thick
    mudquick, and lignite forming,
    cells rumbling, rifts.
    I knelt, chopped through
    layers of ice until
    water, pus, spilled up
    choking the wound. I widened
    the gash. Tchick! Tchick!
    Chips of ice flew.
    Water blew from the hole,
    the well, a whale, expired.
    My knees were stuck to the ice.
    I unwrapped the paper.
    The head appeared
    shorn of its beard.
    Its ears stood up, the snout
    with its Tinkertoy holes
    held blood. Its eyes were shut.
    There was grain on its mouth.
    It sat on the snow
    as though it lived below,
    leviathan come for air,
    limbs and hulk
    dumb to my presence there.
    I raised the sow’s head
    by its ears. I held it
    over the hole, let it go,
    watched it sink, a glimmer
    of pink, a wink of a match,
    an eyelid.
    A bone in my side beat.
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Snaring Rabbits
    Snowshoe rabbits were in great abundance. Resting places below flaring spruce trees were rich with droppings. Rabbit trails compacted the snow, creating banks. Dad showed me how to fashion picture-frame wire into a noose that would slip easily around a rabbit’s throat.
    I tied several snares to overhanging branches. Rabbits were smart, so I made the loop of wire big enough not to be seen.
    For a week, nothing. Two snares were brushed aside. The others revealed no signs of rabbits, yet the trails were freshly used.
    Finally, I dismantled the traps. One snare held snowshoe rabbit remains. There were signs of struggle, as though the death had been difficult. I freed the snare and swung it, still affixed to a frozen head, as far as I could into the swamp.
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Venison
    Dad hunted alone. Other men preferred groups, posting hunters at strategic spots on deer runs, assigning others as beaters circling the forests, clattering, frightening the animals, driving them in toward the waiting hunters.
    Deer season always began at dawn. Dad ate a hearty breakfast and packed a lunch. Over his union suit he wore a wool shirt, a sheepskin undervest, woolen pants, two pairs of wool socks, gum-soled boots, leather gloves with insert linings, and a mackinaw cap with ear flaps. He took his favorite Springfield rifle, not the most accurate of guns. He seldom drove to a hunting ground, preferring to tramp back through the snow, often waist-deep, to the swamps where he had earlier observed deer.
    Why didn’t I hunt with him? Any