Deer City
For a while in there
diplodocus roamed the earth
This is whatever the opposite
of an invasive thought is
Deer on impossibly slender
feet move through the city
at night and I am tired of paying
the moon’s power bill
as I am tired of not making small talk
these gas station exchanges
and using my inside voice
a rock on a floor surrounded by glass
Deer pluck the vegetation from my city
indifferent to boundary lines
Midnight games of basketball ploink
the tempo for coyote songs
There’s nothing else to do Walmart
and the bars all close early
every street preacher’s sign now reads
Told You So in big meticulous block font
like the flat wide faces of libraries
erected in the seventies
so I’ve made a game to pass time
I hide my coughs in a hole
in the mayor’s backyard
Whoever finds them wins
his daughter’s hand
the jar it’s preserved in