TEXARKANAN J. A. Gaye

Constellations of ram’s horns—
His throat white on the hoofpocked

Barn floor. Winter, and the pores
Turning smaller still open, like jasmine—

Our flowered tea blossoms;
Steam is a peace. A pax rusticana.

I’ll take you to the mountains of Arkansas—
Assailant. Like a hoofbeat—

Palomino, pack-worn, pliant—
Pious. A buttoned-up nose, a navel.

Horsebacked, skin-bared,
Where the flora stop just so, like a suicide:

Frost-perfect; frost-burgeon—

And fits his wrists through rotting slats,
To the snow peaked—
                                      Like Leo—

Terrormonger.
You burst thing. You splinterwind.