They chased that three-legged sunuvabitch—
he’d lost his fourth in a trap
while prowling the pen for sheep—
all the way to Turk’s Gut, Brigus,
blood and tracks
marking the direction of his flight.
The loss of blood never tamed him.
His eyes were fire and brimstone,
his coat dark as the devil,
and that one stump
weaving in the air like a hand
casting incantations.
He reached the edge of the cliff,
might have sprung
bat wings and flown down over the ocean
but for the bullet that pierced his chest,
smoke from the hunter’s gun rising,
an angel of god into the night.
Mark Callanan - Poetry 