Editing Sky

1999 Texas Review Poetry Prize Winner

Editing Sky

I think of your Apache mother
rubbing you raw with whitewash & pumice.
In trying to bleach herself out of your
smooth tailored skin, you became an even
redder half-Irish. Even before then, blood
had welled around your high cheekbone firmly
pressed to the hardwood stock, lightly butted
with the single shot from a small bore
Twenty-two. Your first buck’s last leap…