Silver Horse

Third paycheck enough to buy a gun
a silver horse he kept clicked safe in the glovebox
with strongmints and softpacks.

What thoughts did the horse have
on long drives out of the city, tumbled
onto one of its two symmetrical flanks

gleaming in the no-light from the dash
listening to the blackbird making it through the winter
on the radio, desperation in the rear-view mirror.

Perhaps I, though, was living in Riverton with a wife
and a Peruvian man to clear the blood-red leaves
from the surface of my blue-tiled pool.

There’s only so long a horse will stand
the dark like that, only so far you get
on seventy dollars and the silt of hope.

He fed it apple cores, leftover fries,
stroked the velvet of its head and nose
its two dark, deep, gentle nostrils.

Payment, payback, whatever it is we get in life
might come to us in broad daylight
friendly with a click and warm breath

hard change held to the head or
a rosy spread of leaves on endlessly
purified water.