A Menu of Choice

By Rudolph Lewis

The killing season for venison

steaks & regal racks have come

again in the southern wood

flap jackets bright are solitary

on their cold posts,

an aching pink finger

triggers high-powered rifles

starved hounds yap on

the scent, as a buck crashes

through a thicket

We will a rush of the heated pulse

an eclipse of the flagging spirit

a hunger of life sinking

                                     down

in this chase of death

In Baghdad American boys are

the game on the menu—

a campaign of hide & seek

High-tech liberation gunners

bogged down in

the bloody desert sand—

hunters invisible in the dust

I embrace the dear souls

who toss away the killing arms

for the binding pen

of testimony & healing

*   *   *   *   *

10 November 2003