Arrow

Snap, thrum.
Numb forearm, wrist's throat.

Flash of white
on tan.  Start.
Hightail
stag-fast
bounce down, then up
a chaparral-choked
arroyo.  Clatter of stone
and dust.

From here his
four-point rack appears

a prayer
held aloft,
velvet fingers splayed,
crooked, askew
under an electric-red
sun-shocked sky
wider, more vast
than any a hunter

has ever seen.
Black-green sanctuary, nightfall:

impossible.  Animal
brother mammal

scream a terrible scream
a wounded child sings.