Living on hardscrabble, a man is less
than a wolf and knows it, carries a rifle
in season or not. Out here, killing’s
always in season, time enough for scruples
sweating in bed with the windows raised.
I hear my kids kicking their sheets.
Like good kids, they blame the heat.
I feel my wife’s heat inches away.
They sleep with only me to protect them,
nothing outside I haven’t tracked for years,
bobcats and wolves, rattlers that coil
under our trailer like tribal gods.
I’m paid to patch fences around a range
nothing but goats and cows could graze.
I keep the stock tanks full, the buzzards hoping.
When cows stray down arroyos, the wolves
are sure to follow, circling a calf too weak
to waddle. If I can drop one wolf by moonlight,
the others tuck-tail and run. If I’m late,
next morning I drive the cow out
wide-eyed and frothing, her full bag swaying,
mesquite and cactus wedging us apart. That night,
I splash my face a long time at the pump
and comb my hair and shave, roll down my sleeves
and go inside as if nothing’s happened.
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