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This appears in a pre-2010 issue of Down in the Dirt magazine. Saddle-stitched issues are no longer printed, but you can requesting it “re-released” through amazon sale as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book! Email us for re-release to order.

A Christmas Carol

Austin Tally

7 o’clock, dark and windy
i saw
a deer
asleep on the side of the street
sprawled, running
eyes lit up by the headlights
lit up and empty and asleep and
no one will move it off the asphalt

it will rot on the road, and little children
peeking faces out backseat windows
will shudder quietly
draw back into warmth and safety
but they won’t let on,
won’t give a hint as to what scared them

because it’s cold outside
it’s the end of december
and halfway through the weak
spin-drunk week between Christmas and New-Year’s
and nothing bad can happen

and the deer is just asleep
just resting in the dirt
legs tucked under, reaching and
broken
eyes still staring into the headlamp-glow that hummed and hovered and hypnotized
hearing the horn

and then the dull thud,
and a dying deer falling to its knees
but the truck drove on, radio blaring:

it’s the most wonderful time of the year.

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