Idle

IDLE

“I’ve been there,”
he says with pride.
The camera pans
across skies I've seen before
and can’t recognize.

“I’ve done that.”
Sparse and brittle plains grass,
crushed under the rush of hoofbeats
in a fanfare of Western string.
Two cowboys and their steeds.

Effervescent light
spills from the television screen
and soaks into the living room carpet.
Fifty-seven years of shadows
stretch and flicker across his features.
Dad sits on the couch; I sit on the floor.

What he really means is,
“I wish I could do it again.”

The cowboys rope some cattle
and build a fire
with rising smoke like Lady Liberty
beneath the outwandering stars.