Walking the Neighbor’s Mare in the Stubble Field

The mare crowds me,

I flick her away,

orderly as an umade bed.

I am the lone decider,

ingrain on rough stand.

I scratch her neck under the mane,

undo the knot, a chance for love,

after the harvest, our feet crackle.

Soft eyes fly through the high summer air.

Delicata

Oh you romancers,
I can count on in a clutch
even without a mound you don’t
let me down, you girls,
your round bottoms won’t arrive
for at least another month
organized, by the numbers.

The capricious eggplant,
exotic in its shoulder holds purple
and petulant with the weather,
the long drive, the stinky tin can
so close to its noses.
They have no try in them.

But you will repose, rewarded
for your stoic business plan
for months in the dining room,
and jazz.

Big Weed

The echo when you break
my stem is a bitter tingle.
Do you resent the horse for loving me?
I inspire the grapevines. Bitter on your lips.
I inspire you. Watch your handwriting
for adaptability, survivor.
I am your everlasting catastrophe,
Pan’s flute, heaven in this earthly garden of hell.
The more you chop— you save me, you save you.
I multiply like a store selling
used black and white photographs

About Me in July

I live on an island surrounded by mountains. The open is huge, the edges are sharp. In July the wind blows at night over the mown fields and talks to me with no words. An old lady in town talks to the mountain lion on her front porch. She says he’s there to keep the deer away from her petunias. The people here are fearless, independent, quick to the touch, no likes or shares. The women carry a knife. The island is 70 miles long and 15 miles wide. In the middle are three dry lake playas where we ice skate in the winter and race our horses in the summer. On summer nights we lay on the playa and tell stories to the stars. Someone told me my island is in the 1800s. I think that means either it has not kept up or it has been passed by. We have our own laws. If something happens that people don’t like, say a man is accused of a crime, people run him out of town. I do everything I can to stop that kind of behavior. Some of us have Internet service, which makes it possible to live here. Some of us don’t own a computer or want a connection of any kind. A leather-bound red journal will suffice. There are things we don't have here, lots of them. Sometimes I get island fever. It takes three hours to travel to a town where there are misters in ceilings and empty swimming pools. Where waiters sell drink mistakes for half price and no one touches the door handle because they’re afraid of germs. I go there to remember what the other world is like. Then after I’ve seen the complications and eaten some good chocolate I like the inward, windward, journey home.