The Hunt

Sportsmen on a hunt for small whitetailed
deer, big rough men, sporting tattoos, hunting
knives, thirty-ought-sixes with scopes, nine
millimeter side arms and big men’s boots wearing
long sleeved shirts and expensive wrist
watches and big hats and give me caps.
Capable men herding four-wheel drive pickup
trucks and SUVs down winding, dusty ranch
roads to blinds set up close to feeding troughs,
death camps for timid deer who come quiet and
unsuspecting to feed on death pellets when hunters
hid in blinds wait in ambush at point blank range
for their helpless prey.

Afterwards men brag of skill and exceptional
shots as they rehash their endurance of hardship
and patience in cold weather, under stress as
they haul their gutted kill to lockers to be
turned into sausage and roasts before heading
home to celebrate the holidays and good cheer
with family and friends over big meals of
turkey and dressing with cranberry sauce and
all the trimmings of a bountiful harvest.
Men who unwrap and show off new rifles and shotguns
dropped off by Santa on his quest to bring Christmas
joy and happiness to children everywhere.

Sportsmen

ready to defend the Constitution
the Second Amendment
and
next year’s kill
of whitetail deer

lead unknowing
to their Christmas slaughter.