Issue 6: Michael Wynn

by Paula Lietz

Hunting

A dirt road through this Christmas tree farm

in western Polk county.

As good a place as any to find them.

Sage advice from a father

who shot rabbits with a bow and arrow.

You stand in the back of the pickup while I drive.  

In his day he hunted the way Pavarotti sings.

Sticks and strings, “old school”

was his method of killing.

The rabbits pay no mind.

They see us 50 yards away—

safe as the words caught in my throat.

A flutter of wings somewhere behind us—stillness in front.

All those years come to this.

Will he wait a moment before the turn in the road?

Steady eyes crouched by young trees watch.

Fading light glints floating cottonwood seeds—

each a fluff of fleeting advice.

It’s late. Through the dust

I see the end of the road.

The sun considers pausing.

Michael Wynn was born in New Mexico and now lives in Corvallis. He’s practiced neurology in Salem since 1997. When not seeing patients or writing he works on a small log cabin in the coast range. Wynn's poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Journal of the American Medical Association, and Hektoen International.

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