Hunting Teaches us
It help us
And every good hunter needs a dog,
The dumbest smart creature ever
And a gun
One who usually kills
And another who retrieves and sets out
on an adventure to make the other happy

My father bought me my
First dog when I was 7 years old
He had a dog of his own
With tricks and obedience of a trained slave
But dumb enough about hunting to charge into it
Holding forth his full mouth of slobbery teeth and wet smelly fur
To a kid resembling their own father’s loud, screechy voice

My mother gave me a brown gun when I was just 12 years old
I Could taste the oily metal when I kissed it
She was giving to an anarchist
Who had shot at any movement we saw
She was a teenager at heart
Laughed at us like no other
Looked at our different beauties
Like an astronomer looking at the stars

But many young hunters
Stumbled into law
By way of no safety on the gun
Or no protection
That was used for nothing

How many of our real guns
That felt like rusty brackets
And smelled like smoke after being shot
Did so much as choose to be shot at
As much as they gave into the circumstances

Hunters step up
This is for real hunters
Who challenge themselves to find their own food
Who raise children with a gun in their hand
Hunting teaches life
But hunters do it all