Songs Men Sing To Their Horses
Jude Armstrong
Content Warning: mention of weaponry
i. A thin layer of smoke settles on everything in this town, even our mouths. I can’t get the hum of the harmonica, slow like spit, off of my shoulders and out of here. His eyes begin to lift to mine, and he’s real and rough and staring right at me. They move, silently and without repose, to my jean-marked hips and every side of that silver gun one of his faces.
ii. The west has a way of grabbing you by the throat and taking away your fear. A starved coyote. An expansion. My body is something they teach on the frontier. And your hand, wrapped around rope, is something they preach. Waking up from religion sounds like the crack of a whip.
iii. In the dusk of a town I can’t yet cradle is a bottle of gator teeth, slowly disappearing. Slowly taken in the side of remembrance, tender as a slab of meat. The dust settles. The horses whine. I am still here.
ii. The west has a way of grabbing you by the throat and taking away your fear. A starved coyote. An expansion. My body is something they teach on the frontier. And your hand, wrapped around rope, is something they preach. Waking up from religion sounds like the crack of a whip.
iii. In the dusk of a town I can’t yet cradle is a bottle of gator teeth, slowly disappearing. Slowly taken in the side of remembrance, tender as a slab of meat. The dust settles. The horses whine. I am still here.
Jude Armstrong, a young poet, is the founding editor-in-chief of Verum Literary Press. They have been previously published in Corporeal Lit, fifth wheel press, Diet Water Magazine, and more. Find more of his work at https://jude-armstrong.carrd.co.