Steven Turnball*

O-Six, the queen of a wilderness beyond compare, had been shot more or less in someone’s front yard.
—American Wolf, Nate Blakeslee


I imagine him surly, full beard and flannel,
a soft self-tanned leather coat and maybe a few bad teeth

from too much tobacco. His accent indicating
isolated living and a poor education—backwoods Wyoming

American, like the kind that value independence
over everyone else. In truth,

the author says his house was tidy right down to the polished
bone; antlers for drawer pulls and photos of kills

hung everywhere, and her pelt draped lovingly
over his arms than hung on a hook by the door

so the author could view her full beauty, grey coat
soft and thick grown for the winter

he shot her. I didn’t do anything wrong he said admiring
the animal, the receipt for his government issued wolf tag

mounted in the other room. He was right.
She was killed outside the protections of Yellowstone

at a range that required no special skill.
I put in my time to get that wolf he bragged to the author;

he had followed her movements for weeks, studied his prey,
paid the hunter’s fee for a license—ended her life ethically.







*Steven Turnball is not the actual name of the hunter that shot O-Six; rather it is the alias created by the author to shield the hunter’s identity.