Untitled

by Joe bielecki

I once tailed
a white tailed
deer through swamp and trash
behind apartment complexes
for half an hour or more
sometimes almost near enough to touch
it was patient with me
imagine if it had gotten sick of my shit
and instead of sprinting away
turned and fought
and fucked me up so bad
I died in the muck
next to an empty two liter of mtn dew
do you think I’d become some
kind of fucked up bog body
for my daughter’s grand daughters
to dig up and shake their heads at
writing anthropological theses
about this newly discovered kind of hubris
my remains encased
in a web of ossified exfoliating microbeads
like a post modern
3D printed shroud of Turin
people used to say I looked like Jesus
with my sobriety beard and hair
but they’d get real
mad when I suggested
they might wanna consider
acting like him

Joe bielecki is the host of the podcast Writing The Rapids, author of Tired (Alien Buddha Press), and a husband and father. He “lives” and “works” in Grand Rapids, Michigan.