on a list of games that buddha would not play, one is [that he abstains from robbery]

Once I watched a screen-ready trilogy
of deer graze my front yard

in Iowa, only by the blobbed bulbs
of their eyes in the dark.

In the dark, our eyes have the rods to see
only in black and white.

A triad: a father, son, and some
downed spirit. Forgiven in trespass.

I need to stress
the pacifist element here.

I did not see the deer frozen
in the middle of the road

nor strike one with my car
because I am not a white poet

writing about the same deer
for two centuries.

Even if I had struck, my car is not
a Volvo, evolved to survive

striking a full-grown moose,
ramming its legs full-speed

and getting crushed by its body, for
Swedish and Canadian drivers

only. For even if I had killed,
my non-existent gun is not

a Glock, intelligently designed to fire even
if the muzzle

is stuffed with sand. That’s only “merciful
bullet” in McGuffin.

You share your hazing rituals
about panicking and grabbing

a picnicking doe, set
in concrete. A kettlebell of a deer,

when the ask was to bring back gnomes.
True story, staggering

as Sisyphus under his boulder of faith
in privilege. The most stressed

test: where to leave the carcass
in the dark frathouse basement. How to care for

the metallic scratches it left on your brother’s car.
Which mechanisms are built to survive.

Here we go, you’ll say, the race card
I’ve never played. Here’s to the poem of gray areas

I’ve never written. Here
we’ve bitten the bullet.