By Connor Beeman

twelve years old, still childish

in the ways that matter.

your weight, small as it is,

pressed into the back of a doe.

your father shot it in the spine,

paralyzed it from the waist down,

but failed to kill it.

so now, it suffers.

now, it dies slow.

her front half thrashes—

animal desperate, life desperate.

the back half doesn’t move.

wide black eyes, fear-dark eyes, the smell of blood

and damp moss and dead leaves.

your father,

knife in hand.

the doe’s neck

cut open.

the thrashing stops.

all things stop.

the doe is still.

you are still.

your father rises.

not the cleanest kill, he says,

wiping off the blood.

but still a kill.

Connor Beeman (he/they) is a queer Midwest poet who focuses on queerness, place, nature, and history. They are the winner of the 2022 Ritzenhein Emerging Poet Award and the author of concrete, rust, marrow (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Other publications include Ghost City Review and New Reader Magazine.