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      March 13, 2021DuendeJoshua Dolezal

      Shot with a 7mm—mistaken for a bear—
      he nearly bled to death, slamming through potholes
      in the hunter’s front seat as the bug splattered
      windshield grew dark, his shattered femur
      jiggling like mud. It was a slow fading out,
      numbness thick in his ears, belly slack
      with the absence of fear. They caught him in time,
      pinning the bone back as he came around
      to the ache of it all. The red wool coat still hangs
      by the door, blasted apart at the hem, where it once
      brushed his jeans. He fingers the threads sometimes
      while unlacing his boots, the twinge in his thigh
      barely pricking his mind, the thought a small stain
      on a vast plain of snow.

      from #30 - Winter 2008

      Joshua Dolezal

      “Much of my poetry is memory-based, and this poem recalls the true story of my uncle’s nearly fatal injury while working at dusk in his alfalfa field during bear hunting season. I was so struck by the desperation of my family during this time and so awed by my uncle’s resiliency, particularly his fearlessness about death, that the event left an indelible impression on me. Lorca triggered the memory and helped me understand it a little better.”

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