Mt Olivet

Mount Olivet
by Iris Moulton

Salt Lake City cemeteries
are crowded with deer. They come, wild
at first, to eat
the wreaths off our graves. I watch
like a safari from the safety of my car
as a fawn suckles. I have never seen this
in person before. With bulged, rodent eyes
the mother observes me. They move as a swarm, in
silent consensus.

I come to read and write. I walk
the marble aisles discerning the math
of tragedy; who was too young to go, husbands
who passed days after wives— perhaps clutching a tincan
dinner, longing.

Twice I have seen the proprietor bale hay
before a herd. Other times I imagine they just wait for us:
our green tents and clicking shoes, hollowed with hope that
our flowers are real.

Kansas City by Okkervil River

Kansas City

by Okkervil River

The river is deep and the river is wide, and the girl that I love is on the other side. She wants to move to Kansas City: "Move, pretty baby, where the sky is so blue." She's walking down Ellum, turning down Main, trying to find someone to sell her cocaine. She wants to move to Kansas City: "Move, pretty baby, where the sky is so blue." With a dayful of promises dead on her lips, Mark 15:34 tucked next to her hip, she wants to move to Kansas City: "Move, pretty baby, where the sky is so blue." I jumped in the water and started to drown. I thought of her walking and turned back around. I want to move to Kansas City, where the sky is so blue. With her pair of old wings that opened just once, she can walk on two feet now, she can go where she wants. She can move to Kansas City, where the sky is so blue. And I'll tell you one thing that you should never do - never let a woman tell you she loves you. She'll call you "baby," she'll look in your eye, then she'll get on that airplane and wave "bye bye bye bye bye bye, baby." And if I could believe what I want to believe, I'd hold you all close and take you with me, all of you to Kansas City, where the sky is so