(for my brother)
- all the wives have died and all the brothers are horses.
- I’m alone with the world
- and the steam rises from the fences where all the brothers have broken free.
- they roam the hills and drink from the streams and stand meek and mute
- in the falling, drifting, driving snow.
- I can only catch them when I learn to sing the only song they can hear.
- the towels from their showers pile up around the house.
- then they forget to shower altogether and the shower stall grows green like grass.
- I can see where they have hit it with their clenched, knuckled hooves,
- pounded the inside of their stall,
- leaving behind impressions of their fury and rage.
- they refuse the bit and halter.
- I can only mount them by posing on buttes,
- singing my heart out, and jump blindly as they run by.
- with luck I land on one of them and I’m raced across the plains,
- holding onto thick, coarse strands of hair for dear life.
- what other way is there to do this, this grieving and mourning?
- all the wives have died and all the brothers have gone to horses.