Monday, September 7, 2020
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
After the Funeral in Denver, Driving South into New Mexico
February on the winter betrothed
plains. I share an anonymous rest stop with a lady
trucker, she cooks something in the parking space
on a small grill. I watch her breath as she empties
the used grey coals into the snow. Short
walk to the fence line and not far beyond it,
near the Canadian River, they say
a trail stop, some vernacular structure,
a homestead, once raised a family,
was a life-giving lone prairie light against
the darkness and was abandoned un-
ceremoniously, maybe to the last straw of
a blizzard, or the coming of the railroad,
maybe to the last man standing over
Johnny Cash singing, "There Ain't No Grave",
the night when there was no darkness worth
its weight in damnation more remorseless
than this prairie dark. the last of the
whisky finished with a flourish in the gothic
cold, rolled empty back into the black space
that was once a well-lighted room.
-John Macker
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