In Full Velvet. Jenny Johnson

it makes me want to turn away,

      I watch film footage of scientists

      poking through the pink tendons,

      the reptilian claw of the euthanized Casuarius.

      When they fondle the sweet spot, a talon shoots out and stabs a melon

      the same as it would the appendix of a lazy zookeeper.

      I had to cover my eyes when they severed the ancestral wing.

      *

      Before the antlers fall away, here’s what

      the taxidermist teaches:

       Because the velvet grows onto the hide we have to skin it and cut it,

       so nothing rips up and causes damage.

       Being cautious that we don’t give it a big yank,

       use your knife and just kind of pull gently.

       Go on—tap the skin away from the bur.

       See we boned it out.

       For hard boned deer we usually just kind of

       but we can’t do that when it’s in full velvet or it will, you know.

       Now we’re going to put a puncture in the tip.

       So, we’re not just hitting the one vein.

       That’s what we want to see.

      *

      It’s also true that some whitetails never lose their velvet.

      Hunters raise their eyebrows calling them atypical,