Hard Ground

By DANIELLE LATTUGA

Smoke and I are often less than poetry on six feet. We’re more like a blob of bubble gum stuck to someone’s shoe. Sometimes the poetry comes later, when my body is not beat down, and that horse is not stubbornly pushing his hot breath into my face.

Hard Ground

Quiet
Still in your soles
Lean
Move without pushing

Hard ground
For grace still rising
Dust and sun
Questions left to dry

Caked like earth
In knots
And ramblings
Water broken by hoof
I knew you

Pebbles peppered my skin
You turned
Dropped your gaze
Square against thought

Your scent
Some clue
To the world unfettered
Tailbone to spine
Resonant

In memory
The echo of
A boom
Heard after truth
Long faded

We weren’t meant
For some game
Of belonging
Head high

You give me one eye
Now
I ask for two

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