I dream of boiling down a fine jelly
from red berries heavy on their briars.
Both hands scarred for want of a filled belly.

That's not the story I want to tell—see,
I went to my garden with new pliers,
after dreams of boiling a fine jelly,

to fence-mend where deer burst through, where all Hell
I wished against them, until I was tired.
Both hands scarred for want of a filled belly,

dirty already, I shot one deer, felled
her mid-leap, left her fur on the fence-wire.
I dream of boiling down a fine jelly

from her fat alone; and her ripe-blood smell
saturates the house. She thought me a liar.
Both hands red from the gash in her belly.

We were after the same small growth. Tell me,
I said as she died, how you learned desire.
I moved to boil down a fine jelly,
red, red hands on the globe of her belly.