Amelia Sage Van Donsel
MIRAGE SEQUENCE
I did not tell you
that they had lips
in the west, or that
they would always be
making dust.
I did not tell you
that we knitted nightly
sequences of false
eyelashes strung
from our horses’ tails.
I told you that
I touched clay to my hat.
A face is shorthand
for fresh smokes here.
I remember this
because I was there
when the last cowboy left.
You could see him
all the way from the bunk
on his dispassionate
quest for iron tears.
The men had called him
Personal Catastrophe—
Percy send us a pony
Percy send us a girl
Percy get out all our wrinkles
with your suicidal pearl.
PLAINSMAN AND THE LADY
Because I am
no thing
of beauty
the mailman leaves me
violets on the porch
it seems you are
either him or
you are not
but our national
flower is somehow
still the rose
our national
mammal the bison
I don’t know which
is more depressing
the postal service is not
political just like the Pony
Express did not use ponies
back then everyone must have
been foxy on
the ranch dressing
up in their tin stars
and thin bloomers
if they wore those
just to get the mail
maybe when it was cooler
people got naked
in the evenings
I hate my continental suit
can I take off my tie now?
I’m afraid of the wool
getting wet
in my waterbed
I’ve been playing the horses
and losing everything
I think it was your
father’s Golden Girl
that I bet
I left in the road last night
bleeding from some
horse’s bites
they’ve got vicious teeth you know
things get lost
in a face
a nickel
a thong
a private flame
it matters where
you carry them
it matters
that you are thirsty
for the same
lonely water
where the ponies
come to drink