my two hands are the rivers and little streams still
reaching for you. get along, muddy
banks and rough branches that hang like ornaments.
what do you remember most about the oxbow lake?
the simplicity? think back, and before –
jack pines rooted on indigenous land.
yesterday I saw a buck standing in the wet,
copper grass, still. what are the choices
that we give ourselves? listen as it rains.
the fields are all pushed under. how many dreams have
I forgotten already? and that morning the
Minnesota River valley yawned and turned over.
in the yellow hands of dawn, the buck lay twisted
on the side of the road. these are the exact
moments. strung together like worn out prayer flags –
someone pulled over, cut the antlers clean from the
skull, and drove off. the world will swallow
itself again, like thunder and the darkness after.
Eric Huff is a poet and public-school teacher living and working in the west metro area of the Twin Cities. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as 1913: A Journal of Forms, Verse Wisconsin, Curator Magazine, In The Sky She Floats, and The Forge Literary Magazine.