Americana Sonnet By Shauna Shiff

Americana Sonnet

A deer carcass, throat slit, hangs from a limb. 
We all know death, raised alongside it, buck 
head mounted on the wall, eyes dull and dim. 
This is childhood: no one has all the luck, 
not the chicken, neck snapped, not the girl 
grown enough to be pinned in the back seat
of a boy’s car, whose fingers flex and curl 
tight into a fist.  We all need to eat. 
Strip the meat from the bone, tear the dress down 
it’s seam.  Bite, sharpen your canine teeth. 
If you are lucky to still be around,
live to tread on the dead buried beneath.  
Each of us will be predator and prey, 
which role we have depends upon the day. 

Shauna Shiff is an English teacher in Virginia, a mother, wife and textiles artist. Her poems can be found in Stoneboat Literary Journal, River and South Review and in Cold Mountain Review.