The Can
Unzipping,
then peering down
at a soaked urinal cake,
Ted began to think about his life.
He remembered his first love
and how much she meant to him.
He remembered how in his twenties,
he loved to paint. He wasn't any good
but was that any reason to give up?
He thought about his
dying grandfather
who taught him
how to shoot a gun.
Then he
finished up,
zipped up,
and flushed,
watching it all spiral
down,
down,
down,
and away.
Trails and Dens I turn to the drink like a coyote swivels it's head towards a limp squirrel on a snowy day, with an understanding of oncoming satisfaction and a survivalist mentality for the hunt. I’ve tried to imitate animals my whole life. On gloomy days I’m as lazy as a cat and after long days of work I stretch out over the cold kitchen floor like an old dog. I’ve swum naked in rivers trying my hardest to be a bluegill but couldn't hold my breath. I’ve followed deer trails and slept in bushes with hopes that I’d transform into a whitetail but each morning, I wake up with opposable thumbs. I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve stayed up late and spoke to croaking frogs, that’s my secret, but I can tell you I’m envious of the snake that can swallow one whole. What a reality check it is to wake up, take out the trash, make the coffee, shovel the snow off the driveway and realize how painfully human you really are.
Hunt This is how it ends. The swooping shadow of a sharp-shinned hawk veils the sunlight that’s casting through your perfected green room. The raptor’s eye is on you. You, a former blackjack oak whittled down to a single woodchip.
My Father Sitting on a faded red cooler a lit light cigarette dangles from his interdigit like a white pocket-sized pool stick. Shoulders bent forward taking swigs of Bud Light, shrugging and growling like an old retired pitbull. He keeps an ice blue iris and a shrinking pupil on the smoldering remnants of what November had to offer. My father set in his jagged ways tilts his head slightly to the sky like a ruminative farmer making his own sense of Heaven.
Black Body Radiation Crippled spine shooting Pain in sharp short bursts. With your forced time off You wish to learn how To properly hunt deer. That dream and talk Seems so far away now. Each piece of split wood is Wheelbarrowed up to the door, Piled up, then placed inside the stove. Now the fire grows. Bright yellow waves Curling into searing Blue and white crescents. Inside the house The room seems bigger And warmer than ever.
*****
John Altmayer is a full-time bartender at a casino in St. Louis, Missouri. Some of his favorite poets are Gregory Orr, Charles Olson, and Theodore Roethke.
