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a large deer
lay bleeding
in the road
glassy eyes
just staring
like the stag
head mounted
on the wall
in my aunt
& uncle’s
rec room but
instead of
braking we
swerved hard left
then right off
the pervy
pencil-thin
moustache of
blacktop &
the old ford
four-door went
rumbling down
brownville hill’s
dry sea swell
of tall weeds
& scattered
flowers like
canned thunder
over humps
stumps bones &
stones of all
sorts of shades
& sizes
tossing me
my cousins
& mrs
bojangles
just a pup
around in
the backseat
heads bopping
& bouncing
almost out
the windows
each of us
shaken in
every sense
aunt sylvie
stubby gloved
hands glued at
ten & two
wailed &
turned deathly
pale as we
hurtled through
a rotted
fence & steered
past a pine
tree coming
toward us fast
this place is
a graveyard
said uncle
fred puffing
his pipe though
I wasn’t
sure if that
was just a
manner of
speaking he
was from st
louis or
if he meant
it as fact
which if so
would explain
quite a bit