Gypsy

Tonight by the flare
of a pine knot, his stallion tears
clean through the limp fog that lays
itself down along Beggarman's Trace.

When he stops at the Jump-Off
to guzzle more whisky, she coughs
at his back till he turns, and his breath
in her face smells like death

or close to it. Below, lamps illumine
the houses where she should know women
are already telling how she’s become nothing
but wind they hear mouthing

temptation: Let Go. (Now she’s
no longer neighbor, they’ll let her be
damned to a shallow grave.) They try
to listen as far as they can for the cry

of the bobcat their men will be out
tracking all night. They want it brought
down by its throat or else, goodness knows,
what’s running wild might come too close.