[the Writing of Kuypers]    [JanetKuypers.com]    [Bio]    [Poems]    [Prose]


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(1:57) 06/15/07, at Buffalo Bill’s Grave at Lookout Mountain in Golden, CO
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06/15/07, at Buffalo Bill’s Grave at Lookout Mountain in Golden, CO
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read from the book the Window live at the Café in Chicago 10/12/10
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “My Father, Shooting an Animal” and “What It Felt Like” and “Once Wanted You as my Friend” (read for the future Oeuvre audio CD release) at Austin’s Recycled Reads 7/15/17 (from a Panasonic Lumix camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “My Father, Shooting an Animal” and “What It Felt Like” and “Once Wanted You as my Friend” (read for the future Oeuvre audio CD release) at Austin’s Recycled Reads 7/15/17 (video filmed from a Sony camera).

my father,
shooting an animal

we sat in our
dining room, looking out
the sliding glass doors

onto the patio, the
expanse of concrete that
led to the pool, fenced

away from the ravine.
Father had a dislocated
shoulder, his arm was

in a sling. He had
a friend’s shotgun, some
sort of instrument

and he looked out
the window, sister and I
behind him, looking

over his shoulder.
And then he saw a small
squirrel, walking

along the edge of the
patio, and father opened the
sliding glass doors

propped his gun
over his dislocated shoulder,
tried to look

through the sight and
keep the gun balanced. He
usually didn’t use

guns, he seldom
borrowed them. And here he
stood, in his own

house, aiming at the
animal at the edge of our
property, with one

good arm. And then
he shot. We all looked; the
animal, hit, stumbled

into a nearby hole.
He hit the animal, despite all
his trouble, all his pain.

People wonder why
he shot the animal. I wonder
how. Could I do it, even

with two good arms.
Could I see through the sight,
could I aim well, strike.


Copyright Janet Kuypers.
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