Henry Oso Quintero

SICKENED, ELK TANGOES IN APACHE LAND

Friends have told me of a wish fulfilling tree
--For Tom Coca

Perhaps you too think this is our last sunset
how fire light dips behind the hills
and as if by luck the roan oaks and junipers
steep into the gray of a fool moon

Tomorrow--you the hunter in clearings of green
scented with the whisper of skunks and apples
cowled to the back of your boot
ascend and cross the sky

I will find you

But now for the very first time
we will watch
the frogs intrusion to the stars
on the still of the stock tank

the green of thick summer gramma
etching the thin of my shanks
with dew
stories of crickets flowing
into the forefront of the prairie with hills
in each dark footstep

All this smiling in the sheen of new antlers
My coat covered with the ochre of my out urine

Grunting, thinking of you--
dreaming of the perfect plastic fletching
sleeping lightly with a racing heart

And mine is poisoned
not with love, nor fear
but with the misgivings of my own good fortune
of the sick seasons before in a late gallop
The pith of my body for one brief instant
covered with the blade of my shoulder
dulled, cut, healed over
in good grass and siring
finally I have been touched with blood

friend, bowman--
it is the turbulence of our own hearts
the world itself is rather uneventful--

Now crossing over the hill
morning fire building in the Eastern slope
you hunched under the full weight of pinon
with the bow string pulled to you cheek
Perhaps I have found myself
at the edges of this peaceable kingdom

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