(Pregunte Al Cazador Triste)
Ask the sad hunter
why so sad?
The deer are so fat
his knife is buttered with greasy blood;
"winter will be dreadful,"
he sighs, dressing skins:
"the deer know we'll suffer."
Fortunes differ
then cease to waver;
the competition
ceases to be man surpassing god:
the assumed sin
is as meaningless as the assumed sanctity-
prayer is the language of servitude
unless we are brave towards god-
does the dog stay out all night
to keep the cat company?
They'd annihilate each other
sans our domesticity;
they'd annihilate us
sans our size.
Fernand Roqueplan writes that he is a combat veteran, a medically retired Marine, with a 50% service-connected disability rating from theVeterans Administration. He works physical therapy, as an interpreter for social services and, seasonally, as a steelhead fishing guide. Fernand has been published in the Manhattan Review, Many Mountains Moving, Indiana Review, Revista/Review Interamericana, Wisconsin Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Borderlands.