Poem: Archery by Chuck Kramer

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Archery

When I was eleven, I went to a YMCA summer camp in Michigan with my friend John. The camp sprawled along the shore of a small lake and for two weeks we lived in a rustic world of wood cabins, outhouses, singalongs and simple dinners cooked over wood fires.

We enjoyed the swimming, hiking and horseback riding. We also had lessons to teach us manly arts: boating, shooting, and archery. John and I both got off on the archery—reminded us of Robin Hood.

We weren’t very strong and found it difficult to draw back the bow string which kept pulling away from our fingers and jerking treacherously out of line, scraping along the inside of our arms near the elbow or smashing painfully into the thumbs of our bow hands. When the lessons were over, I walked away frustrated by my inability to shoot straight and hit the target with any regularity.

John however was determined to master the skill and used his free time that afternoon to practice. The bow string continued to get away from him and eventually tore the skin from his elbow. It was an open sore, flecked with blood. The teenage counselors covered it with band aids and advised him to stop. When he ignored them, they watched with amused smiles as his relentless practice quickly tore off the bandages and enlarged the abrasion.

But he wouldn’t stop. His eyes burned with determination. He gritted his teeth, pulled the string back again and again, ignoring the pain as the cord grated his skin, and cursed when he missed the target.

The next day, his arm was infected, oozing pus. The counselors refused to let him shoot anymore and his pleas to continue with a better bandage fell on deaf ears. He sulked for the rest of our stay. “I could’ve hit that bull’s eye,” he told me, “if they’d just given me a chance.”

Twenty years later, he was still relentless, abusing his body with booze, drugs and a menacing rage. His kids eyed him with fear. His wife threw him out, realizing the danger. He cursed her cold heart, put a gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger—his only bull’s eye.

 Chuck Kramer’s poetry and fiction have appeared online and in print, most recently Blood+Honey, Synchronized Chaos, The Brussels Review, Lothlorien, and The Raven’s Perch. He has also been a finalist in the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Awards in 2017 and 2023. Memoir in Chicago Quarterly Review (a Notable Essay in  Best American Essays 2023), Sobotka, Evening Street Review. Journalism in Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, Reader, Windy City Times and Gay Chicago Magazine.