People are dropping like birds in the back of my head
shot down in slow motion memory
the hunters are greedy this year.
Pheasants fall like girlfriends
you no longer see
Mallards drop disguised as boys you loved
who stopped loving you, and
a million geese slam into rough waters
where your mother and father, the brother who
liked bikes and cars but not you
rush by like crumpled photographs that
catch and break on broken limbs.
And now the flocks are thicker
they flood the skies, pointer dogs point,
thumbs cock triggers
headlines squawk and scream.
The hunters are greedy this year
over 100,000 doves across their backs.
We wait for them to leave
for smoke to clear,
for a new season
a refuge of immunity.
We wait
for the hunters to be full.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deborah Meltvedt is a writer and medical science teacher in Sacramento, CA. She believes strongly in helping students use both the pen and community activism to make a difference in their community. Deborah has been published in the American River Literary Review, Under the Gum Tree, the SPC Tule Review, and the Creative Non-Fiction Anthology What I Didn’t Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher. She lives in Sacramento with her husband Rick and their cat, Anchovy Jack.