Old Western

Even the wind wishes

to become a cart

pulled by butterflies.  (Adonis, translated from the Arabic) “Celebrating Childhood”

An old western: in the hospital on stretchers, frail pale

birds we were wheeled in  to witness Gene Autrey & Dale Evans;

That blood orange sun

That trigger-heart

Noon came        Bending things

In & out of the culture:

guilt for naming

the nameless

had no strength to break a wishbone:

Downeast we were little Puritans;

buckled into ward-cots

restrainers

blending

like fire

with crackling swale of  gun-sheen twilight, slipping the holster off

a dry rattle like a bird’s cough

a cool glass of water     sleep for the son of woman, and the daughter

not mine nor yours        nor anybody’s fault.

The whole world glistening like dark salt.