On the Road to Patsy Cline (MVP)

Shitfaced at deer camp
we sit and toast to
eight-point bucks, to
too much red wine
in the venison gravy, to
the cool and lengthening nights
of autumn, to Emily Dickinson's
white dress, to the old farmwomen
of Nebraska who've turned to
poetry, to the way
love hangs from the human form
like silk and finally
to the human form itself when
Buck Lund offers up his glass
saying, "Here's to a woman's feet,
to the ankle and arch
and the way the foot moves
even when she's standing still,"
and Kent swirls his wine,
"Jesus, yes, there's nothing
more underrated, sexier,
than a woman's foot";
since these guys are hunters
maybe they fall in love
with what leaves tracks
in the snow and lets them
follow, and then Jane says,
"Men like whatever body
part they can get to
with the least difficulty-
this is not a matter
of aesthetics," Jane says,
so everyone looks at me,
waits, until I respond,
shitfaced at deer camp,
"I like a woman's smile,"
and then the men groan and Buck
says, "You're growing soft,
old buddy. A smile? More
than breasts heavy with milk
or air or whatever
breasts get heavy with?
More than ankles? Red-tipped
toes?" and I have to admit
I almost said, "A nice fanny"
and thought of some
I followed for a while, yet
I never fell in love with someone
because I liked walking
behind her, while I've chased
women whose smiles
excited me, teased me close
toward something
genuine, broad, bottomless
as desire, and Jane says,
"I like the smile, too;
besides, have you ever seen
a man with nice feet?" Soon
all the bodies, shitfaced
at deer camp, give way
to sleep and forgiveness
and the various boundaries
of our delight.

In the morning's fresh light
the stags will bound
toward the sky and some will not come down
as men pretend themselves
to leaves and burst
with fire, while I,
no gunman, keep long as I can
to my night's dream, this time
of Emily Dickinson, who leads me
to a small room
where she reads a poem
I've not heard before
of death and life in one
breath, and there
I throw myself at Emily's feet,
at an ankle
alone and too long sad
where I kiss her round moment
of bone, its poetry, her small
alabaster moon, and how
it shines, how it smiles,
how in light steps it gives
shape to one more
distant, tideless
landscape.