magician walks into a room and all the walls turn to glass. deer stand in the foggy meadow of my house as i look into their eyeshine from the dirty school bus window. i tell them the lion is sick. i tell them do not visit him.

i cannot sleep in my cousin’s bedroom. deer head hangs on the wall. i can see myself in the mirror of its black eye.

what does magician do in the glass house during nighttime? his muse sleeps on the moon wearing silk. his skin is made of shadows—no—mahogany, his pores the wood grain and his eyes knots. he pulls movies from the swirl of his mouth.

deer hollow head, hollow chest cavity i see it walking home, searching for the life it lost. ribs lined with fox teeth marks, i told you, i tell it, my voice echoes in its empty hollow chest cavity.

the heart is on the bleachers.

it beats in time with the echoes of clock tower bells.  

i find myself stuck in a box with a deer-murderer. i recruit magician to help me find the hands stained with purple teenage rage. it will look like paint, i tell him. could your camera find guns in cars? hunters in high school have more in common with foxes than me. 

a deer foolish enough to visit a lion’s den doesn’t have a heart, magician tells me. 

but it did, i say. it had a heart

that now sits on the football bleachers.