On My Birthday

I drive to a beach with windblown sand,
flat and white like an ice rink next to waves
webbed with brown foam that clings to the land
and quivers as I walk, face to the sun,
my bare ankles red and stinging
when I see a dead buck, soft and limp
against the broken cliffs, and a man
with a black pocketknife gripping
the animal by its front legs, ripping
into flesh like cutting carpet,
and holding the antlers up to his partner
as if they were a bouquet of flowers
pulled from the earth with clods of dirt
dangling from its roots. I stand
for a moment, inhale the icy air
before returning to the car. Stepping over
ropes of seaweed I see what I think
cannot be but surely is a second dead buck,
solid and stiff, face slanted toward
the water as if it collapsed endeavoring
to reach it. I try to match its gaze,
to make meaning or merely make note
of another passing year, its small cruelties,
the coastline crumbling beneath my feet.