Kindling

from Miracle Strip by Matt Layne

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about

Music:
Ned Mudd
Taos
from the album Buffalo T-Bone

lyrics

Kindling

Tell me your story, and I will tell you mine.

A rag of colts splinter across the Arizona desert,
white dust rises behind them like smoke,
like dreams half-remembered, like a living prayer.

The gray tortoise watches from beside the black road.
Her back is the weight of the world.
There is no chance of rain.

You have heard that horse hooves sound like thunder;
this is not true. They are the sound of goodbye.
They are the sound of a station wagon door shutting

and shutting again. They are the sound of our father’s voice
calling out that last list of things for us to forget.
Then there is no voice, no hooves, no rooms, only the vast

open plain of your heart beneath this purpling bruise of sky. Look,
there are the galaxies that were wrought the moment you opened
your eyes and reached for them, and here you are: infinitesimal.

Come sit by the fire, and I will tell you how wild horses spirited
our father away as he lay dreaming of a tortoise and her clutch.
In the morning, we can share all he remembered to leave behind.

credits

from Miracle Strip, released August 31, 2022
Music:
Ned Mudd
Taos
from the album Buffalo T-Bone

license

about

Matt Layne Birmingham, Alabama

Poet, librarian, raconteur; Matt Layne has been poking hornet's nests and looking under rocks since he was knee-high to a peanut peg.
I reckon you oughta check him out.