Once All the Hounds Had Been Called Home

When the grapevine had thinned

but not broken & the worst was yet to come

of winter snow, I tracked my treed heart

to the high boughs of a quaking

aspen & shot it down.

                                           If love comes fast,

let her be a bullet & not a barking dog;

let my heart say, as that trigger’s pulled,

Are all wonders small? Otherwise, let love

be a woman of gunpowder

                                                   & lead; let her

arrive a brass angel, a dark powdered comet

whose mercy is dense as the fishing sinker

that pulleys the moon, even when it is heavy

with milk. I shot my heart

                                                 & turned myself in

to wild kindness, left the road to my coffin

that seemed also to include my carrying it & walked

back along the trampled brush I remembered

only as a blur of hot breath & a howling in my chest.