The Dunes When I told him of the deer skull,he leaned in, so I took him backthrough where I’d been exploringunder oaks and down game trails to the dunes where it was—the single vertebra and the eyelessthing, egg-like and bleached by the sun,its broken jaw a couple hands away, and I watched him lift it from the sandto wrap as a relic and nest in his sackto carry home until he found enough bonesfor his art, and although I never knew its weight, I try to remember how it felt,the deep light over that sea, the whitebowl embalmed in the bag, as I put my handto the head of my…