Live Lightly on the Land

You went out this morning to shoot birds. 
I know because the clam nets are gone 

and I wake to more emptiness than usual. 
Last week, you drank too much and told me 

you like the way the birds fall from the sky 
when you hit them just right. Either 

they curl inside of themselves like metal-dipped,
wilted lilies and torpedo straight into the ground, 

or caught mid-glide, they collapse with a 
recklessness that reminds you of the way I run.

But only when you watch from a distance. 
You should have been a soldier. 

I should have been someone else’s wife. 
Our daughter’s first words on waking: “I hate 

the sound of dead people walking under 
my feet when I walk on them.” 

Her skin, finally cool when you 
return, the net stuffed full of wings 

and feet. She insists she said bugs. 
I allow it. The same way I allow you 

to touch me with your bare hands 
after all of these casual murders.

first published in Northwest Review