Ronny’s best friend was flung through
the windshield. The road lines
swayed as if the truck hadn’t rolled to a
halt.
Ronny fainted then.
Fifty some yards from his dead friend
a deer lay with its tongue out.
From the judge’s desk a clock blinked
as Ronny was threatened with manslaughter
for drunk driving.
At home, during the countdown
to the court’s verdict of five to ten years,
Ronny unbolted the fence gate
and let his friends into his backyard
where next to the lush cottonwoods
waited all of the stacked firewood
in piles, tall as cenotaphs.
So you’ve been doing this then? his friends scoffed
as Ronny caught his breath.
So I’ve been doing this then, he thought with an ax,
chopping trees faster
than time left
to burn through.
A hell of a bonfire
was held when he was locked up.
His friends toasted Maker’s Mark
and pissed near the remaining wood.
Almost all of them didn’t drive home
but blacked out
on the wooden armrests, the soft rugs
of the wooden floors, before the fireplace
with the wood lit, beneath the heads
of stuffed deer. Flames
in their marbled eyes.
