Inaudible Lasso
The sky opens like a parachute
& settles on our lawns
as if the god of this place has thrown
a shoe & now the whole
white flag. Sorrow swims to me
in dreams—no sand-salted
palominos but appaloosas bruised
as Bunyan’s ox—ravenous
for dry land to appear in the copper
eye of a spyglass. There,
or here, the earth is burning. Water
warms at worry’s hooves
& wails in octaves only heaven
hears; then heaven tethers
sea to sky & evaporates every drowning
whinny. Last night, before
the weatherman had swung his forecast
around our horns, we rushed
the desert’s sidewinding clouds
with all four windows down.
You’d exchanged a quarter for a band
of blue aluminum at the Dairy
Queen inside the Flying J & hitched it
to my hand in the dust bowl
of the parking lot beside a bale
of hay. The horses are still
swimming & tonight their heaving
flanks might finally throw
the water from their coats, their stamping
wet & stifling on the bolo
of my throat. But today I’m Sorrow’s
drover & my spurs are made
of ice; I made a truce with whatever
future’s left—hot or cold
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