Roasting Meat in the Woods

In a perfect memory, we are roasting meat in the woods.
Sharpening your stick, you tell me everything is fine.

When I hear gunshots, you say,
Don’t worry, they are just drunk.

Have you ever shot a gun, Ivan?
Only in school, you say.

What do I do about all the dogs, Ivan?
Take your beer bottle—take your bottle and shove it in his mouth and kick him in the feet.

And if I don’t have a beer bottle? And if there are a lot of them, Ivan?
Take the biggest one. Take the biggest one first.

What percent of life should I dedicate to what I really want?
Eighty-five, you answer, knife in hand.
The rest you can split amongst family and friends.
 
 
 
Sara Adams is a Montessori teacher in Portland, Oregon. She has two forthcoming chapbooks: Poems for Ivan (Porkbelly Press) and Western Diseases (Dancing Girl Press). “Roasting Meat in the Woods” is from Poems for Ivan. Sara’s work appears in lit mags such as DIAGRAM (forthcoming), Shampoo Poetry, Amethyst Arsenic and Requited. More info, including links to a full-length New Translation of Twilight, at www.kartoshkaaaaa.com.