I’m at my aunt dolores' trailer in Montana where the walls are covered with horses
I count twelve
some jump over barrels of hay
some are silouhettes on a mountain range
in the bathroom the soap dispenser is a ceramic horse
with goofy teeth and cartoon eyes
she just got back from Washington where
she tells me it’s blackberry season
here
they have a gas station that sells huckleberry burgers
she likes huckleberries
but she says blackberries make a better pie
she doesn’t have a horse of her own
she has a cat named shadow
who leaps through the window and she screams every time
outside there’s a saint bernard tied to a pole
howls like an angry wife every time a stranger drives by
she tells me there’s a man in her life
he’s an ugly brute with a golden tooth
tasting pine trees and taking swings
hopping greyhounds and sweating steam
getting drunk to the sound of the t.v.
fishermen’s manners
but he’s a steady pulse of heat.
she says,
“I get confused and start looking for love in all the wrong places. In between the cushions of seats. God help me if I’ve settled for spare change. I feel so lost I wish I could make like smoke and float up easy into that basin of everything that’s left."
Dolores whispers now,
"He doesn’t see me much anymore. Sometimes he comes over late, the saint bernard howls while I let him hold me. Me like a dense forest of trees coming up out of the reeds, leaves the shape of water lilies. "
