It had ended and ended
badly so I’d stopped drinking
and started again or was
about to when an old friend
bought me a nonstop to stay
with him in Colorado this was early
October and the first snows
had driven the elk down
out of the upper ranges
backing up traffic into Lyons
and drawing crowds of tourists
who posed alone or with
their blonde polo’d families a safe
distance from their wildness I
watched disgusted I thought
there is nothing worse
than this shit knowing of course
that there was much worse and that I
had done it I lay down
on my friend’s bottom bunk
and woke in the morning
and wandered into the living
room where vaulted windows
looked out on a parched field
and there was an elk there
then four five clustered
between boulders picking at
the stunted shrubs even larger
up close than I expected the night
before I left for good I slept
on the living room floor
and she came out shivering
and sobbing asking me
to hold her just for a minute and I
said no I said no because so
many times before I had said
yes and not meant it and just
like that I knew I was
small and cruel and moved
out across the placid bay
and shut myself up in my oneroom
apartment and drank
and watched spaghetti
westerns A Fistful of Dollars
Duck You Sucker the elk
meandering closer
to the window where I stood
scowling into the light I pressed
my palm to the thick sheet
of glass between us and smacked it
once hard and not one of them
turned so I hit it again both
hands this time making a sound
like an empty plastic tub a
hollowed-out thing and the closest
lifted its head ears high
tuft of white tail twitching
and looked calmly upon me
without recognition
and went on eating the wild grasses