ode to venison

my grandfather, singing, comes into the kitchen
wearing only his boxers, the rest of his clothes left on the porch
in case of ticks, for the blood to dry. my mother at the table
is told to bring him the leather bag he keeps under the sink

 
I killed, I killed, I killed
thebiggestdeerintheforest
 
from the rafter in my grandfather’s shop sway two deer,
brothers, dancing intimate & honest circles
around one another, their bodies an earnest church
of velvet and the sugar-sweet afternoon rain

 
I shot, I shot, I shot
thebiggestdeerintheforest

 
when he’s good & drunk on whiskey Arnold Palmers he calls me
to hold the bucket between my knees so he can drain the harts
for more to fill his cup. it’s here i learn the language of a hand
pulling upward on my shirt toward the backyard

 
It’s dead, It’s dead, It’s dead
thebiggestdeerintheforest

 
i help my grandmother load the paper packages
into the freezer. heavy like a stack of books they sit
one on top of the other waiting to be cracked open,
to be read back into buck & brilliant battle

 
Now I’m, Now I’m, Now I’m
thebiggestdeerintheforest

 
what else is there to come of daughters & songs?

Laura Rashley is a writer and editor living in Charleston, South Carolina. She holds a degree in English from the College of Charleston, and her poems have been featured in Prairie Schooner, Poetry Quarterly, Fall Lines, and others, in addition to having been exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery. A Presidential Scholar in the Arts and a National YoungArts Finalist, she currently works as an editorial manager, has recently adopted a second cat, and ran her first marathon last January.