Inner
Workings
by
Matthew Early
—for
Dad
You
taught me to skin squirrels
by
the time I turned four:
Knife-slice
down the belly like
scissors
through wrapping paper.
Tear
guts from shell,
make
the inner workings forget
they
ever needed to be hidden.
I
would, not of want,
but
it made you smile
bigger
than the splitting pelts.
So
big, pride flowed
like
squirrel blood
from
the corners of your mouth.
Your
words never failed
to
drought my eyes:
We’re
all wired different,
and
there’s no shame in that.
The
woods were your church,
so
I’d go on our hunts:
October
swelling,
squirrels
gnawing hickory
from
stem in the treetops
like
some drunken Morse Code.
I
never told you
I
hated the ease of it all:
How
they’d fall like skydivers
sans
grace and chutes,
but
I know you could tell,
that
you were hurt
when
I didn’t want my camo
dirtied
with dead blood—
and
I forgive you for feeling guilty.
Matthew
Early
is a poet from Columbus, Ohio. He holds a BA from Muskingum
University and is currently pursuing his MFA in creative writing at
Butler University. He is the recipient of the 2018 Beulah Brooks
Brown award in poetry. His work has also been featured in several
literary journals including: the Flying Island through the Indiana
Writers Center, Barren Magazine, Ghost City Press, and others.