It hangs on the wall like the ominous leer
of Billy Big Bass, like the dead head of a deer,
some ostentatiously antlered caribou
that, shotgun held low like a gift, you
stalked through a snow-crusted Finnish wood
for three days, your Gortex hood
freezing about your ears in stiff clefts
like a conch shell; a shift left
into a clearing, you took your shot
and though it seemed like triumph, now you've got
it mounted on a plaque with name, year,
when you step back, take stock - it looks like reindeer.
I had a list of puns to use,
ReplyDeletea way of writing poems to abuse
the English language, but before I'd begun
you had to use that one, the reindeer one,
the one I'll have to take a pencil and Chekhov.