tracing your light, left foot against pebbles,
and rust-soaked earth. its stomach rumbles,
riddled with crusty, drained sores.
a boy existing in a frozen, fixed realm,
floundering between red wheelbarrows and oxen,
on a road longer than a rattlesnake’s ego.
he shouts again, shaking his tiny fists
straight to his sides, but only groans meet his ears.
“too many lives have broken down on this road.
too many abandoned settlements rest on the corners of my eyes.”
a blue plane soars above, dancing in the homes of ashened tornadoes,
rushing without a glance below at the ruby, bleeding landscape.
the boy rests until white meets pink and crimson and burnt orange,
and brilliant, bruised lavender then a silent, total black.
coyotes do not hunt him. they eat silently near him, sharing their
raw, runt-sized meal because they knew a survivor when they saw one.
he talks over subtle, stirring fire, his stories
fills balloons in their heads until they could do nothing, but burst.
their adventures felt like tall tales to a boy with
wild, pearly white eyes, deep indigo pants covered in hardened dirt,
and a rosy, oxidized heart. their paws cross as his heart glowed
with every moment he caught his short breath,
violet sorrow plagued his speech. they did not
ask for his residence for he mutters savagely about his past,
pushing minute holes into the ground as he recites. they only sit,
hoping to revive this ritual once more. they howl with him
as light gently kisses the brittle plain. several dance in harmony of
his words. worked words, weighed with soot and gravel.
whelps jump picturing the boy’s rough, chisled face in the sun,
arms stretched to nowhere in particular, consumed by his limited
thoughts, brushing his feet once more on the beaten, badlands road.
WL
