Cider Season

Grandpa looked down, eating
an apple, which was exactly what

this fawn was doing behind our field 
when I drove a slug through its guts. 

He put ripe fruit in his mouth, the juice 
oozing out into the white bramble 

of his beard. I stuck his buck knife 
in the young deer, cut out its asshole 

and pulled out the reeking.
When buck fever hit me, I got lucky

my second and third shots missed. Instead 
of destroying meat, they smoked up frosted dirt

as the babe’s lungs frothed to a stop.  
Black blood seeped into needled earth. Its innards

were a dark purply-pink. I fought through 
the stink. Dad directed my hands. I eviscerated 

my kill, while two preceding generations 
of huge men watched me separate 

organs and trim out white marbles
of gristle from a cave I’d now carved deep 

in a cage where a rhythm used to beat. The meaty 
heart inert. Its chambers dropped in a white bucket

and steaming under a cold sun, its climb
sending morning frost blossoming into invisible vapor.

There is always going to be so much we can’t 
see. Four hungry eyes bore into me. I focused

on what was at hand. Violence that made me
hear what I ached for. They called me a man. 

---

Josh Nicolaisen lives in New Hampshire and is a professional gardener and former high school teacher. He holds an MFA from Randolph College. Josh is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, Clockhouse, So It Goes, Red Rock Review, Appalachian Review, and elsewhere.