Hunting Season | Jamie L. Smith
When my mother left
my father, he shot her
clay figurines
out of the trees, littering
the forest floor with shards
of fragile animals
faces pulverized
to white dust. Trust me,
he said,
They weren’t
very good.
~
In memory
she leaves me
standing
on a rocky shore. Lighting
fires the sky. My mother
tells me,
There’s a way of dying
gracefully—
our family
has never been
good at it.
Then she wades
into the grey
electric surf.
~
When my father left
this earth, he died
on the inhale,
still taking
more in, as though
gearing up
to tell one last joke
or explode.
I tried
to make that mean
something
in my dreams
where there is
no image
only sound:
Gunfire.
Heavy rain.
~
Which of us is bullet,
which trigger? We leave
each other
loaded
silent in the forest
of our resentments
until
the shot
rings out.
Bonus audio of Jamie reading her poem:
About the author:
Jamie L. Smith is the author of “The Flightless Years”, and “Trojan Horses: Voices from the Opioid Crisis”, winner of the 2025 Unleash Press Book Prize. Her chapbook “Mythology Lessons” was winner of Tusculum Review’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize and is listed as notable in Best American Essays 2021. Her poetry, nonfiction, and hybrid works appear in publications including Southern Humanities Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Best New Poets, The Good Life Review, and anthologies by Indi(e) Blue, Allegory Ridge, and Beyond Queer Words.
Please visit jlsmithwriter.com for more information.