Big Game- David Wagoner

You're feeling pleased with yourself, perhaps even
  Beside yourself as you approach slowly
The big game animal you've shot
  And think is dead. It doesn't move. It's no longer
Far away, out of reach, something painful
  Beautiful and dangerous that wasn't yours
But seemed what you've always wanted
  To be close to. Now you have it, have it right here
Holding still for you. Listen now. Listen.
  Look carefully: if its eyes are wide open
Like yours, if they're fixed and glassy, if the flies
  Have already come to call, then you're home
More or less free and you've done more
   Or less what you thought you'd aimed to do
When you came here with a gun,
  And this is no longer animated body
Is all yours now, a prize to be taken away
  And eaten or otherwise disposed of, to be mounted
And preserved for the benefit of other eyes
  And ears for the rest of your hunting life. But
          remember
As you bend near this creature, smiling,
  Already rehearsing the modest parts you'll play
At your comfortable fireside in the glow
  Of before-and-after-dinner stories, look out
For yourself (it may already be too late,
  But look out anyway) because if its eyelids
Are shut, and if you can't see the light
  Between them, it's still alive. It may be trying
Hard to remain itself, a skill much harder
  To learn than you might imagine, and if your hard
Should touch what's left of it anywhere at all,
  It may suddenly show you something you've neglected
To learn in time: the surprisingly quick, inhuman,
  Deadly, unmanly art of self-defense.