For Jerry
It was the wrong season –
Summer – to kill
A deer, and with the wrong
Weapon – a motorcycle
Rather than a rifle,
And from the wrong place,
The county blacktop
Instead of a deer stand,
And your wife
With you, a cardinal
Sin, and it wasn’t
Supposed to be that
All three of you died –
This is Wisconsin,
Where deer and men
And women are killed,
But not often
Like this, all together,
And all at once.