FIRST HUNT
The first night I had my driver’s license
I drank a 6 pack and borrowed my mother’s car.
I turned the headlights on, backed out
and was about a half mile down the road
when I had a collision with a big deer.
He slid onto the hood as I hit the brakes
and when I skidded to a halt
he scrambled down and ran off,
leaving me with a broken light,
some blood on the paint, fur in the grill,
staring into the woods on a dark country road,
not a scrap of meat for my troubled mother.
MY GOTH GIRLFRIEND
In the cemetery shadows
she pushed me against somebody’s grandpa’s
grave stone,
knelt in the excelsior
of the pine mulch
and showed me
that god walked the earth.
Death’s rock etched my back
as I fought but
lost myself
into the wet velvet corridor
of her throat.
My balls howled and a dark angel
clung to my leg.
Slowly the moon pulled
itself back together.
Not fifty feet away
beyond the flimsy border
of bougainvillea
rushed the insane traffic
of lost souls.
I was born in Peoria, Illinois in 1970 and have lived in Tucson, Arizona for the past 14 years. I love it here, love the desert, love the Mexican culture (most of it), and I love the heat. I have one full-length book of poetry out called DROUGHT RESISTANT STRAIN by Interior Noise Press and another called HE TOOK A CAB from New York Quarterly Press. I have had over 500 poems and stories published since 1993 and I am currently working on a book of prose.
http://www.nyqbooks.org/author/matherschneider
