(Poet’s note: I recently revisited and worked on some poems I wrote about ranch life many years ago…the themes are a little darker and the writing style a little different)…

 

there was Whiskey too

he lent me his favorite book

which I forgot to give back

and so he took what was his

when I wasn’t there

 

I pictured him quickly entering

and quickly withdrawing

not touching or looking at anything except for his book

 

The Picture of Dorian Gray

inside the front cover

ripping and guarding the curled yellow pages underneath

was a note from someone­­­

indecipherable

in pencil

a life in pencil

 

he saddled and wrangled horses

never shaved­

had one of those moustaches you could twist

 

when he looked at the mountains

he looked through them

 

used to run with some women in Detroit they say

one of them bore his little boy

who drowned a year later at her feet

 

in a lake at her feet

 

Saturday nights

he sat on the porch’s edge

and Whiskey drank his namesake down

 

until the flies would swat his hangover away

with the running horses the next day

praying for the headache to leave

 

so he can try and love himself

again

 

 karenhansonpercy