I Dreamed I Was a

Reindeer Laborer

.

We stood atop a wide iron loading dock.

Foggy breath caused the white flakes to fade

As they fell that gray morning in Finland .

Coming and going in 1940s panel trucks,

Powerful hunters shucked

Reindeer hulks at our feet.

Bodies still warm slid heavily

Across the frozen dock

Into the warehouse where

Darkness hid the walls

And all but the arms of others

Who carried the bodies away.

Occasionally a Vizula was tossed up

And it too was pulled over the

Bloody ice through gaping doors.

One Vizula, the last, twitched

Punching the soft tummy of a deer.

How are the animals killed, I asked.

“They knock them on the head.”

I took the groggy dog into

My arms and left for home.