Poems by Constance Schultz

when we move in February and it feels like spring

and as a deer gang
harass a neighbor’s garden
at midnight she sneers

can you talk about a dam every day
can you feel it you feel the depth
can it snag your
thoughts unaware

a view of a two lane highway
granite walls stickman on top
salmon boats in Rattlesnake Canyon

parades of deer and deer and deer and deer

in a small town like this
do people at the dam ever swear

the house on Burdin Boulevard

all the doors are
     wrong
the closet
     looks like a door

and the door
     that goes next door
     looks like a closet

and the tree in the yard
     throws a shadow
that I always
     think is a person

and 11 deer wander
     around visiting

the acoustics echo
     and shush

on the way back from doing laundry in the coulee

turkeys wild brown
feathers down
feathers high

took over like quail
down the road a piece
one two or twenty

fat birds
single digits snow tracks

one crosses
two
then three

hide on the right
a stag
another
and a hopping fawn