The Last Trail

THE LAST TRAIL
January 29, 2005


I came to uproot the trees by their fists
for the wind to blow around on another trail
where October would fossick through their
leaves like crunchy jewels on some other
ride beside a river you would never cross.

I took the beat of hooves so there is no sound
and ripped each print off the kibbled path
like erased words as red legs, like sticks,
went up for the last time. I took the apples
and soured their juices and browned their insides

and wrinkled their softened flesh. Now they
have rusted, are ruined, and rotted for no one
is there to nuzzle their bulbous bodies
or to taste their sweet summer succulence;
the pre-autumn crunch of a season passing

swiftly by. I took my rag and wiped off
the pines and tainted the vanilla air; I took
the bright jingles and the dim jangles and the
jungle silvers and stuffed them in my silent
cotton pockets; I stole the creaks and leather

groans and every thump, thud, and thwack
of tail, hair, or ladigo, and wrung the baby necks
of nose-sniffed rabbits, and the wing-swept sough
of soft owl landings, and peering white tails
from green fevered thickets and bled their bodies

and left them by the side of the trail to be
no more. Because I knew you'd never be back
for the scent of spring to settle in your pink shell
ears and short-sleeved shirt and the creases
of your buff-worn Durangos. I came to taunt

your three o'clock in the mornings and
your Thursday afternoons and your
memories that can never have her back again
in living mane and breathing barrel.

Only her red reins are left curling
in the cupboard. But you will never
have another trail again for
I came to take them away.