In the Middle of Nowhere

the horse stood, carved from moon
except for its eyes. Those were coal unfolded
from what had been oceans
compressed to rock that could burn.

If the woman came out of that hour
with a flame, it could be lit,
likewise if the man came out
of the woods with fire. The fall,

full of flames, the slow kind, taller
than houses, mountains, bent to the sky.
The horse stood in the groove of a mountain
with one leg bent

as horses do, head towards the ground.
The woods, the hour, the house
closed in falling flames again,
no man or woman for miles around.