pioneertown.

That girl who watched her father burn cigarettes
on cattle & later saw him cry in the barn – take her
some place soft. Some place where the salt blocks turn
to cheap boxed wines the color of a kid’s rusting wagon,
where there is no memory of a time without water
when wives whispered if we have taken too much from rivers
why haven’t we become lush in return? Play her
a song on your phone, one where a man’s voice
trembles to match a clarinet warping out of tune
making everything in the field sound like a pond melting.
Now kiss her, but only during the moment where
one horse remembers & the other scratches for wings.
Kiss her so your chests are no longer dark woods
but box-springs breaking vinyl in a Chevrolet. Whisper the name
Honeybeast so she will call you Moon. Understand when you kiss,
you are two beaks filling a guitar with string & hay, one asking
the way to name a crow & the other folding the wings.
Understand that the crow’s a dove & might not last.
Walk her home. Know the lantern might burn you both
before the dove settles back to the husk you lay in her hair.