One Horn's Kin Reminds Me

Last October, in Zion,
Pulled out in a no-go zone
For visitors, I spotted

The most grandiloquent buck
I'd ever seen, twelve-point rack,
And that not the half of it,

The long, dark stripe down his back,
The thick torso, unscarred ears,
The beauty and brass of him

Walking straight up to my truck,
As if he could overrule
Millions of years of quaking

Genetic success to say
To me, barely bipedal,
Late-arriving invasive,

"Fuck you and the wolves you rode
In on." The other side flinched,
Viewed in my mirror. So what.