Givingly

– So here we are again, one-handedly fingering
the puckered edges of the exit-wounds
memory leaves behind, he said, and he tossed
his leash made of stars, then tightened it,

around the antlers it seems I forget, always,
about having. Smell of nightfall when it
hasn’t settled yet. Insatiability and
whatever else hidden behind the parts

that hide it. Surely any victim – sacrificial
or not – deserves better, I thought, him leading me
meanwhile toward the usual place, the branches
grow more givingly apart, there, as if to say

Let pass. The wind was clean. The wind
was a good thing, in his hair, and across our faces.