1
On the right hand, old defensive scars above
his knuckles. Missing pinky on the other.
A defiant twitching in his left eye.
Scars on his bristled face, his nose, his ears,
but the only wound that matters pumping
blood from his chest. He thinks: it's a bad thing
to die right now: grandkids, the asshole son-
in-law, the debts. But he dies anyway.
Someone finds him lightly powdered with snow.
He used to laugh about those ugly scars:
"You should see how the other guys look."
You don't know his name; you cannot love him.
2
He had a dog he named Knots and a plane
he named Therese -- a name only he would use,
for the plane I mean, a Cessna with skis
and floats, room for caribou and supplies.
Knots slept on the softest bed at home,
curled so his snout rested on his paws.
Therese was also the name of his wife.
"I don't make you laugh so much these days,"
he'd said. She shook her head: "I guess you don't.
I never married you to make me laugh --
She froze when asked
"Why marry me at all, then, years ago?"
3
The killer could never have faith in
an all-powerful god creating company.
"Power doesn't ask for repetition."
He took only one shot, refused another--
a superstitious refusal to stop.
He jogged in the dark past the Dairy Queen
to his car, driving off, only knowing
the thundering shot, a grunt, and a fall.
About God, the killer -- was right? -- was wrong? --
who knows? - but wrong about repetition.
There is a power in repeating, a soothing
affirmation in the repeating dawn.
4
On how the daughter's cries broke his dreams,
or the smell of woodstove bacon at dawn,
his favorite early morning sleepy chatter,
the victim didn't know to reflect.
Failure, and hard worry was all he knew,
and worry, colored with pain, overtook him --
and that the son-in-law was now a father.
eating his daughter's bacon, sleeping in her bed.
More angry at the son than the stranger
with the rifle and the tee shirt - so cold,
so oddly cold, so strangely dressed alone,
speaking as if in tongues on the lot.
5
Someone found him lightly powdered in snow
at four a.m. Streetlights on snow: peaceful
morning before the traffic, before cars screeched
at stoplights. Stoplights changing without purpose,
stoplights stopping imaginary cars,
stoplights stopping imaginary trucks.
Someone found him lightly powdered in snow,
called the police, who marked off the dark scene
by 5 a.m. when the stoplights had cars to stop.
By 5:30 they removed the body.
By six they had an I.D. from Therese,
who had found a buyer for the plane.