A Heart Made of Ground

There’s the rider.

The only constant is the horse and it’s always moving.

Ride down Main Street; pass in and out of the town.

Hear the hooves in the dirt.

Splash through the gully; stand in the stirrups like a jockey.

 

Stand up in the saddle. Put your full weight on the horse

Let it rear. Give chase.

Shoot out of town.

Ride down the canyon

into the ghostly horizon.

 

Down in the deserted places

there sits the owl and the cockatrice,

the stork and the dragon,

bones and lizards,

swine and ravens and unclean things.

 

When the horse dies, trod off

with graying clothes bleached by light

and shoes with soles that are falling off.

Gloves of thinning leather,

two silver pistols and spark and ash,

a target to shoot and never catch

and a hat that’s lost its firmness.

 

It’s not about the horse;

the horse isn’t the important thing.

 

Ride on forever and never die

even when arm bones fall apart.

Ride until outline, form and mold of body dissolves,

the water in the vessel pouring out,

unraveling large, sharp shards.

 

Nothing is permanent.

Ghosts are meant to exist in the desert.

 

A person of light stands on the black shelf above, beckoning;

it’s a form of someone who exists below.

 

There’s a human outline in the dust,

a space created by the wind,

a hole in the maelstrom.

 

There’s a rock formation that looks like a person,

There’s a person glowing in the night vision binoculars.

Run down the road at night.

Squint and never really see.

 

For every person out there,

there is a second person out there

living out the same exact life as you.

Out here, there’s only two.

 

A satellite dangles in the cold.

The skull of the sky shudders and turns overhead,

An arrow of light strikes in the darkness,

a thread pulling you over the gravel;

it’s pulled by an outline, a space,

stepping over clouds and stars.

 

Run, crawl, gallop and scramble

over dusty mountains to get there.

Give chase to the end, blue and frozen,

drenched in snow and ice.

Someone is flashing like a lighthouse

but soon that outline will disappear.