One of my dogs has brought the foreleg of a deer
up from the bottom woods, and gnawed on it awhile,
and left it next to the door like a long-stemmed rose,
the joint at its shoulder red and flowering
where the dog has neatly licked the earth away.

Often they die like that, gut-shot by a hunter
or carrying an arrow for miles. I’ve found their bones
up under banks where they’ve hidden in caves of roots,
curled themselves over their pain, and kicked at the coyotes.
And the dogs have found far more of them than I.

Picking it up, a delicate life runs lightly
over my hands. The knee-joint’s smooth articulation
folds the leg into itself like a carpenter’s rule.
There’s a spring to these bones, the hair laid back from flying,
the hoof like a castanet ready to clatter.

The wind lifts just a little, gets in under the fur,
and I see on the shin a tiny, tar black scar
from a barbed-wire fence leapt not so long ago.
My two dogs stand and look out over the fields,
and the three of us can hear the wire still thrumming.