Self-Portrait with Camo Hat

I don’t believe in marriage, but wearing his camo cap in the flash
-bang of his daddy’s truck, blaring down the backroad, we go July fast—

I’m this no-shirt, beige blur, flying fifty through the switchgrass,
and I’ve never looked this fearless—black butterflies jackknifing

the orange glow, the cemetery’s morning breath—scent of honey,
burning cinnamon—lying in the lap of this Chevy, talking to God

in the star-cut sky—Father, can you hit me with one of your sunbeams now?
Am I fearfully and wonderfully made?—with my bust lip, chain-glint

wounded bastard, love-for-sport thing—I’m so Orpheus blurring back.
I’m wildfire and chocolate ice cream in the brown eyes, so he’ll look at me—

so he’ll kiss me and pull the trigger on the Savage .243—first rifle I shot
with my dad in the deer stand his father built—laughing when there’s no

bullet in the bedchamber. Dead-end to the staircase—Hey, maybe
I’m the first trout lily to be an apex predator?—Yeah, I make it look breezy

wilting like a fairy in a Baptist town, riding this hunter’s license for life
to the headstones where I want you to shoot, so ask me—ask me if I’ve ever

killed a living thing—Now ask me if I wanted to.



Poem originally appeared in The Missouri Review.