Hunt God, when I feel like a pedestrian compared to you, gamely propelled a pace further, then another, but with no chase in my heart's acerbic quail-hound rhythm, not only am I driven to question why it is I get jittery in the same space as a drawn gun, but also how my face, reddened and squallish, is something anyone would want to see. It's angelic, claims my wife. If you let Heston's coifed Moses come down to us, with cocked rifle practically in hand, how can I breathe easy if I stand prey, hunter, faithful pointer in one, alone? I think I’ve been asking this all my life. Douglas Basford teaches at SUNY-Buffalo, and his work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry, Subtropics, Two Lines, Sewanee Theological Review, The National Poetry Review, The Hopkins Review, Jacket, and elsewhere.
