5:00 A.M. Central Daylight
Nebraska has a bakery for early souls.
The passenger tweaked on Eastern time
will find brown succor in the paper cup
that speeds him on a straight line Omaha
to Lincoln. Watch the cedars rise beyond
the shining Zephyr and stretch into a red
horizon. Pray and chant in white. This day’s
morning is to stay or go. O, all aboard!
* * *
Owensboro
Two horses in a field at night.
I am riding you into the moon.
You tremble under me as I tongue
your ear. You worship my name.
My father whipped me into a
saddle, taught me how to do this.
The day comes when you throw me.
When I curse you in jodhpurs
and leave red welts on your body.
The metal rod the doctors used
to push your sternum out is where
I’ll tie the reins to tame you.
For now, let us lie among the tufts
of peonies on this hard ground. Let me
forget my father, gazing away as he rode
his horse beside me. Listen, love, to the
dark gallop of my heart and the sound of cars
hitting rumble strips in the Kentucky night.
Graham was born in South Africa, lives in Brooklyn, and has studied with Amy Beeder, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Jericho Brown and Ada Limón. He’s been published in New Ohio Review, Burningword, FRiGG, OxMag, Arsenic Lobster, Caliban, The Round, and elsewhere. He is a new believer in the Oxford comma and is looking forward to publishing his first manuscript.
