Portend

October,
the sky, dark through
patches of low lit clouds,
peeking like bullet holes
in the body of that big bear
my father shot when I was eight;
I cried stars.

I am not with the stars.
I was thinking of young worship,
Beloved and secure. I thought,
in childish love
there are no errors
when the young think
of hearts painted on a steel water tower.

But there are other terrors
in such a great height. Coming
across the field, a flashlight;
the silent hunter always
come to hunt me.
Where a blackened Remington rifle should be,
is a different weapon: old, oily, black
belt held in the trigger hand of my father.

Perhaps you were on another water tower.
And maybe you knew
a different maturation: at 10,
the father who comes to hunt you
holds another weapon in his right hand.

It was pain and height that prepared us to love.