Clementine

In my dream I saw a stiff creased mountain

And grass plains spreading out around it—

Small tomatoes popping their skin

In beef and pork broth and red wine.

You, my wild haired girl crawling

Over horse heads to ride bareback—

Your stark wildness sprouting like feathers,

Your running patterned

As oak, sequoia, madrone.

Charley the Catahoula churning circles

Through the shadowed grass lit only by stars—

Horses cropping that grass, one sorrel, one blood bay,

Peering in windows, sniffing brace posts.

My own blood fearful of the ever widening gaze

That must briefly forfeit the earth to the shape of a promise

Too full not to burst.

Damn those eyes.

I love you so much already.