Quiet as Walls
By Shay Wills
Past the quiet lakeside
Lane, where mule deer
Nibbled beneath pecan trees,
A shot cracked—house-restrained.
The phones stayed silent.
Pecans thunked to ground—
A man inside,
Quiet as walls,
Unpainted.
The mule deer protested
Innocence of his death,
Though witnesses,
Blinking dumb, glass balls
Of darkness for the merest
Nose-sniffing moment
Then bowing heads to munch
Pecans out of his living yard,
In their guilty way,
As if judgment mattered.
An army brat, Shay Wills graduated from the University of Arizona with a BA in English and creative writing. He lives with his spouse and son in Tucson, Arizona, near his two older children. He earned his MS from Grand Canyon University and now works as a mental health counselor. His poetry appears in The Abstract Elephant, Hive Journal, Wingless Dreamer, and Bookends Review among others.