My shot echoes
Like snake-bit horses
Galloping wildly after the horizon.

My dog, his body half-submerged in water,
The way we wade the last river,
Transports a duck in his teeth.

Its feet, its stopped head, bearing the signs of gravity—
Earth’s display of eternal ownership.

He drops the body onto the dewed grass.
The brackish fog hovers over the marsh.

I trace the fang punctures in its feathers,
Holes for fence posts, old burrows in oaks.

The animal, silent as the dirt, lies emptied.
My dog investigates its bill, nuzzles it open.

A minnow flails across the ground, its body so small.
Moonlight flickers inside the hound’s furred jaws.