Pickup
Pickup
Everything leans towards you, a ranch, a sunset,
one of those pink and mauve and purple jobs
torn from the pages of an old Arizona
Highways magazine. The gate to the corral
is white but all worn out and flaky, and the horses
all have wheels in their eyes and wheels within
those wheels like the transmission
of that rusted yellow Studebaker pickup up
on blocks out back. No one
drives by anymore, but there's a for sale sign
anyway, hanging from a chain, a rusty bucket
shot full of holes on the porch,
and the front door swings back and forth,
open and shut, reveals s female figure
whom the old man took in after the accident,
who lived there briefly, offering some solace,
until the boys came home on one of their visits
and turned her inside out and she wound up
weaving in her best dress down the dirt road to town
wondering if they'd ever leave her alone again.
Two nights later the horses leaped over the fence,
the rosettes in their eyes spun and spun until
they ignited, and people, even those who lived in town,
saw flaming horses plunge across the sky.
Copyright © David Tammer | Year Posted 2025
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