At least ten dead deer
Justine Chan
At least ten dead deer on the highway between
Wisconsin and Minnesota
in different states
Of decay that look of lunge
The half-rot, the red in their face
There is still a redness
In the woods in the dusk
in the fall at this time.
Don’t
look up & you might miss it
The border, the welcome sign, just
Know you’ve crossed the river
into Hudson. And there’s the
Target & there’s the outlet mall.
Don’t
look up & it might just
Meet you frozen in light or
Running antlers & mass
of fur & bones & smack
a shattering.
The way they talk here:
The car was totaled. The buck was still
Alive. So the cop shot
It in the head. Some guy listens
To the scanner to know where
To snap up
The backstrap (still
fresh, before
the buzzards & crows get
to it.)
That so-and-so married so-and-so.
That they had this number of kids. That
They got divorced. Remarried. Kids of
So-and-so grown up, married. Those so-
and-so’s kids grown up. Married.
And so it goes. Nothing else in between.
But I wasn’t listening.
But I burned gas back to the city.
But I laughed. I put the word backstrap
In there—so funny so gold
The way it snaps back. The way it cracks
Out of the mouth.
The way we can’t imagine anything
Different.
Justine Chan is a writer, poet, and singer-songwriter from Chicago. Should You Lose All Reason(s) (Chin Music Press, 2023) is her first book. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature, KUOW, Baltimore Review, Beecher’s, Booth, Poetry on Buses, and Midwestern Gothic, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington and has worked many seasons as a park ranger with the National Park Service. She currently lives in Seattle.
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