Western Horizon

Beyond this kitchen window—you,
prairie horizon, palest blue lifted over
bleached yellow, choked to white winter,
some wrecked fence a black sentence
poorly punctuating half the distance,
like last year’s poorly executed painting
done with a knife, an abstract prophecy
of my new townless home.
Old thoughts leach through
January’s cold pane to you.

I cannot choose a favorite light.
Daybreak buttering your dark toast.
White noon eating you for lunch.
The bold day spilling her bourbon on your lap.
A family of moons crawling over you.
Light takes you on your own terms, turning.
Like you, I turn toward, into, away from it.

Your distant non-line, a silent line.
The north wind carries a message to us both.
But you have nothing to say
on the occasional truck’s parallel groan,
the drips dishes drop,
the refrigerator’s rolling hum.
So, I talk to myself.

Where do you begin as I move toward you?
Do you count cows too?
How small am I from there?
Whom do you prefer?
Wyoming tumbleweed?
Goldfinch gleaning twisted thistle bones?
Me, a gaze above the sink?

Erased.
A blip cleaned out.
A washed dream.

How small am I from there?
How small am I from there?
How small am I from there?

2014