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Haley Morton

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.

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