for Susan

Dawn's tender light
shatters to a blast
of shotguns on the lake,
jolting us awake
from our halting sleep.

The hunters are back,
predictable as fall's
bright bloody wash
of dying maples.
Camouflaged, funereal

in their whispered
death-bed watch
behind a makeshift blind,
their fitful quack-ack-acks
imitate the call

of a wounded duck
that in fact sounds drunk,
each belching shot
an attempt at validation
that ends in folly.

Dearest, the blaze
of morning is upon us
here in our downy bed.
Come closer. Let's kiss.
Whatever's insinuated

by the chuck of water,
far fields of sun-blanched hay,
may it be this
sweet tribulation
of lips and arms and breasts

under the snug duvet
you lift like a vaulted wing,
our bodies warm as the rose
light firing the hills
of this furious season.