Image: © Charles Eastwood
Drought
everywhere the land is now taken into drought
mandatory water shutoffs
only water your lawns after 6 pm
and we let our lawns die
and neighborhood after neighborhood becomes burned
and the city gradually loses its color
until the valley bakes down into a light brown
and i drive around the city
and each neighborhood is the shade of brown directly tied to income
with certain wealthy areas still green
they just pay each fine and continue to water
and things get worse
because the green lawns become a symbol of opulence
and the working-class neighborhoods of salt lake city become enlivened with rage
and you’ll see people with bumper stickers against the lawns
but they’re really against the wealthy
stickers like one with green grass with a red x through it
or even one that says
STOP THE GREEN MENACE
and it’s just cartoon ceo’s mowing their overlush lawns
and people protest daily outside the gates of the old families of the valley
the kind that
even just fifteen years ago
were shadows in the workings of statecraft
but no longer
and their names are put onto fliers
that say
WATCH OUT FOR
CEO OF LAKE PETROLEUM
with a picture of the dude in a suit
and these fliers are everywhere
i’m driving and finally i get to the wealthy neighborhood
i want to get into this neighborhood where i hear sprinklers
while it’s only 3 pm
and it’s quieter than the rest of the city
i hear birds
but there’s tall gates
and even the gates have non-native foliage draping over them
and i’m like
aight
and i’m driving home
and am minorly outraged
they’ve walled themselves off from us
let’s put them all out to pasture!
but no that wouldn’t be right
they’ve already put us out to pasture
i hate the feeling of being forced to relate to people just based on income
instead of something normal like whatever
or like how much grass you have
i now have an idea!
i’m so excited i plan it out in my head on the drive home
i get home
i wait until evening
late at night
like past 5 am
where i dress in all black because i want to convince myself that this is what i’m doing
where i drive my car back to where i was earlier in the day
then comes the hard part
but luckily there’s a low part in the fence
that i’m able to dive over
so i do it and vault over the top and land on
grass!
great lengths of green grass!
like i’m on the other side of the hill!
it’s a commons area where all the richies can sit and have picnics or whatever
and i remember that i’m dressed like a robber
and i look even worse carrying a handheld sod cutter
so i run into the shadows of a few pine trees
and i hear a bubbling creek
a creek!
curling nicely around a mansionous estate
a moat!
with luscious gardens
and bronze statues of naked cherubs
and the lawn’s not only perfect
but it must be cut like every three days
because the length’s like something you could play golf on
and i walk to the center of the lawn
which looks like a fair way
and i fall to my knees
and plunge my sod cutter with both hands into the ground
and even though i’m committing vandalism
the opulence makes me feel that my cut should be a perfect square
but i’m unable to cut a perfect square
i toil and work feverishly to just get a square two-feet raggedy blob
and i’ve pulled it out!
and out comes all the dirt with it like a foot deep of earth
and i bang the earth onto the ground
but it stays attached to the grass because it’s so moist
so i lift up the whole hunk of land
and run back to the fence
i notice a light turn on in the near distance
and since someone else’s awake
i just chuck the grass chunk over the fence
more like a Frisbee
and it lands on the other side
then i clear the fence too
so now i’m driving somehow now with this useless big patch of green grass
and it’s not even an even square so it’ll just look like an exaggerated divot
and it’s dawn now
and everything’s beginning to become visible
and it’s sitting next to me on the front passenger’s seat
and it’s waving a little in the air conditioning
and the smell of real earth fills the car
and moist dirt crumbles around the seat
and it’s just so green
and then i feel this now as a weird now
i mean i’m driving a chunk of someone else’s grass to who knows where
and i see a deer corpse on the side of the road
and it’s really a fawn
and it’s buzzing with insects
and for some reason i stop to take a look
and i make sure my car’s off the road enough not to get hit
and i walk up to it with the afternoon sun on my neck
and i look down and see the fawn
and i look up again
and i grab the patch of grass and lift up the fawn’s head
and put the grass under the fawn’s head
and lay the fawn’s head down
gently onto its new pillow of grass
and i look at the fawn’s head on the grass
and its eyes are still black
and intact
and HUGE
and how did it wind up here?
the fawn comes down from the hills
and strays looking for water
and parched
and delirious
strays into traffic
this fawn’s wandered
a stray from nature
and i’m looking down at those black eyes
and they look lost
and sad
and say
even before adulthood i know what’s in store
and what is in store?
and i’m staring into the eyes of the fawn
spots still mainly intact
everything else begins the journey of decay
its eyes are black with a film of glass that looks like it’s an astronaut’s helmet
and i think about the fawn
and it’s lying splayed out but now with a grass pillow
and i know its eyes will stick with me
and how i can’t help but feel
that the deer dies lost
even in death
this is a lost deer
____
Puck Phillips is a heteronym created by Utah-based writer Christopher Newman. Born in the fictional town of Neconish, Wisconsin, Phillips studied English at a nearby college. He taught university courses for several years before leaving to write full-time. He lives with his wife and two dogs in the Sugar House neighbourhood of Salt Lake City.