THE DEER'S HEAD

By Alex Padina

This morning the air was fresh,

but clinging to it

was a scent of rotting flesh.

A fermenting dead animal

must have been hiding under the bushes.

A sweet and sour, foul perfume.

I remembered the first time I came across

this septic aroma of life ended.

I was a child and my friend’s father, a hunter.

And there in his back garden,

under a knotted pine tree,

like an offering to a forest god,

a roe deer’s head laid in front of me.

Ants were festering on a black substance

the prey’s brains had transformed in to,

and diligently, an efficient network

of hymenopterous highways

coiled from cranium to soil

exposing a sun-bleached skull.

Morbid fascination met pity

as I pictured the animal alive

before being shot.

And then skinned perhaps, beheaded for sure.

Were the eyes still shiny and open

when the severed head was left

under the tree to rot?

And could it somehow see me,

in front, counting ants,

measuring suffering

and pondering death?

I know not.

Yet this I do:

The sticky scent of death

clung on to me to this day.

Please burn me when my time comes:

I do not wish to ever

smell that way.

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