Stag, Emblem, Anthem

Joni Wallace

In a fall of bone letter confetti,
shin bone, ankle bone, someone’s

white Dodge pickup blinkering down
the mountain, on the windshield 

needle-likes, double columns, pentameters, 
Bentley’s iconographic crystals 

playing into zero visibility.
I imagine collision as a theory.

Radio lowing storm twisting on.
Radiant shivers of deer by the roadside 

and somewhere, a bead on, the trajectory’s 
hammer-slam, pow. 

Triptych. Three bucks on the bier of a flatbed 
I approach in the lane, kill limit. I name it.

 

This is one of two Online Exclusive poems by Joni Wallace. Click to read "Mesas and Particles."