The Shooter

I frame each shot as though it’s my last exposure—
mist sifting through alder side-lit by rising sun,
ghostly waves rolling over fields and farms, golden
light on golden leaves. I try to keep my focus sharp
as an aperture, but each composition carries me away,
cuts what binds me to the earth and pins me like a moth
to the pages of what’s passed. Empty-handed, I open
like a poppy at dawn, awake to the sudden chill
on my neck, the musk of decay, Canada geese calling
from high above the overcast. Catching the cow
cannot capture the wild musk of elk.

Wayne Lee has worked as a commercial fisherman in Alaska, an actor/dancer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a waiter at the Space Needle, a journalist for the Washington Times and Seattle Times, a fisheries marketing consultant in Indonesia, a public information officer for five different government agencies, and an instructor at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he works as a writer, editor, teacher and group facilitator. Lee’s poems have appeared in Pontoon, The New Mexico Poetry Review, Slipstream, great weather for MEDIA and other journals and anthologies. He was awarded the 2012 Fischer Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and three Best of the Net Awards. His collection The Underside of Light was a finalist for the 2014 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award. His most recent collection is Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets.

Published April 25 2022