FLESHING PATRICK'S DEER SKIN

This heaviness worn so lightly
over muscle and bone,
separated and connected
inside and out.

Holder of heat, mocker of cold,
it moved with the grace of your kind,
moved with your blood and nerve,
no effort, weightless.

What once was alive
gives up to gravity
and sags over the scraping place
where my blade works.

Maroon flesh and yellow fat
peel off in long ropes,
and beneath, the thin white paper
crackles over the mottled blue.

Its weight once graceless
in my lap animates,
moving now to my muscle,
my nerves, my blood,

warming the salt soaked
membrane, infinitely permeable,
as we move back and forth
across it together.


© 1995 by Richard W. Todd

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