COWBOYS AND COUPLES

Fisk Park has become part of the river
Part of an old arrangement

As in those doggerel westerns,
Two sets of hombres, pistols drawn

Who keep riding their ponies
Past the same outcroppings and knolls

Or with couples long used to each other…

You do ramble, she said, biting a corner
Of toast. Just say flood and be done with it

Happens every year. That’s how big fish
Enter the pond…

That’s what I meant, he suggested,
Smoothing his mustache with forefinger

And thumb. Like renewal? she asked,
I don’t believe so, as she answered herself

After a moment,
More like monotony, the color of bark

from Skin, 2021