Overkill

I am reading a poem about a God on the bright

rectangle of my phone-- squinting from white

light when I hear the sound: one lone

shot echoes down the hill I say a prayer

for the deer, downed with eyes still open

blinking water. Without my eyes I see her

this poem overlapped by this dying pain

that grows, about God, about God being alive

in the form of a fag-- not a stick bundle

but a person who has been taught to hate

himself, hate the way he grows to be

with a man swells and swollen it's

all too much for me, I put down

the phone light all I can see

is the deer, the deer who in this moment

is dying on the ground, the leaves

around her she never saw coming,

too young to fear people the way

she should, I draw circles

with my pen, over and over go

the same rounding line till the circle

becomes a sphere, becomes

two spheres (so neither sphere

is dying alone) the deer is sinking

down now into my throat, chest:

this is how we go on living inside

each other, these times the worst/

best we kill the innocents, the easiest

ones first, put their heads on

our wall and leave their eyes open

so we can be dead when we look

into them.