Silent Wyoming Silos

They wait, deep down in the red earth, covered from the yellow, Wyoming sun, like Tom Horn, a while ago, but deeper than he, not the same, they wouldn’t kill for fun, and the bored army busies itself beneath; their mind-numbing repetition unclear, but the fear, the fear stays, keeping them on their toes and best behavior and the specters of the cattle barons, and rustlers and Geronimo, wonder at these busy ants underground, eating, sweating, filling in a thousand forms; I wonder, do they write poems? “Here I sit in my rocket-chair, wondering what’s happening way up there, on the prairie; while down here, I tick the charts and ponder, how it would feel to turn the key, turn the key,” blah, blah, blah….or perhaps they have chess clubs and baby showers and tense debating thrills, and Buddy Rich, jazz hours between the mind-numbing shifts and drills; and there’s a Slim Pickens, ride- em- cowboy move still, next to every lady-soldier’s heart, while another day on the wide-open, God’s gift prairie passes by; and up above, in the dawn light, Tom and Geronimo ride by the metal hatch singing; “I got you under my skin,”