Three Deaths Deep into a Week
The mimosa trees— with their pink hairs—
are so many must be suffocating something. A deer rings free
of the tree line, flung full of adrenaline
into a ditch. Its back legs broken, the boys from the farm
down the street come with their crowbar.
We shoo the children inside.
The cicadas press their insistence into us.
On the other side of home— a dog’s eyes are being eaten
by ants, blood seeps its black coat into sludge, pussed onto his balls.
Flies swirl.
We shoo the children,
tell them
it’s just a wasp nest not to get any closer. Not to look.
I take a picture, because we don’t have time to bury it, we tarp it up
lay it under the mimosas.
Its yard long scar in the pink breath petals.
We expect the ants any second.
Haley Morton is currently an MFA student at the University of South Florida. They have a chapbook of poems awaiting publication, titled Body I Peel Out Of, and fiction published in Hobart Literary Magazine, poetry published in FlyPaper Magazine and several book reviews in Sweet: A Literary Confection. Haley received a B.S. in Behavioral Healthcare and spent time working at a crisis mental health unit.