I remember him falling beside me,

the dark stain already seeping across his parka hood.

I remember screaming and running the half mile to our house.

I remember hiding in my room.

I remember that it was hard to breathe

and that I kept the door shut in terror that someone would enter.

I remember pressing my knuckles into my eyes.

I remember looking out the window once

at where an ambulance had backed up

over the lawn to the front door.

I remember someone hung from a tree near the barn

the deer we'd killed just before I shot my brother.

I remember toward evening someone came with soup.

I slurped it down, unable to look up.

In the bowl, among the vegetable chunks,

pale shapes of the alphabet bobbed at random

or lay in the shallow spoon.