As he filled the jug<\/p>\n
from the fresh, seeping spring<\/p>\n
he thought about the girl in the skirt,<\/p>\n
her lips wet with whiskey<\/p>\n
her hands damp with want<\/p>\n
her gray eyes moist<\/p>\n
with dreams of faraway places.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They thought he was lonely<\/p>\n
in the tar paper shack<\/p>\n
with only the wind and weather<\/p>\n
for company.<\/p>\n
There was no electricity<\/p>\n
no education<\/p>\n
even in the 80\u2019s.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Screaming Widow Peak couldn\u2019t quite cast<\/p>\n
a shadow long enough for cooling<\/p>\n
on days the sagebrush curled<\/p>\n
at the edges, trying to eject<\/p>\n
itself from the ground<\/p>\n
that was not quite soil, not quite rock.<\/p>\n
The rattlesnakes didn\u2019t stay to play.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He rode into town every once in awhile.<\/p>\n
Kids found him odd,<\/p>\n
adults thought him dull behind the eyes.<\/p>\n
His blue roan ground-tied<\/p>\n
outside Hardware Hank<\/p>\n
as he purchased his meager<\/p>\n
supplies: coffee, beans, flour.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He could kill his own meat back then.<\/p>\n
He jerked most of it, so it would last,<\/p>\n
the rest, stored deep in the dirt cellar out back.<\/p>\n
The iron skillet<\/p>\n
constantly on the fire<\/p>\n
a mix of hopes<\/p>\n
a gathering of memories.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They fenced around him,<\/p>\n
keeping him in,<\/p>\n
keeping him out.<\/p>\n
The snow crunched under his boots.<\/p>\n
Years later, he caught his arm<\/p>\n
in an auger and went<\/p>\n
to faraway places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As he filled the jug from the fresh, seeping spring he thought about the girl in the skirt, her lips wet with whiskey her hands damp with want her gray eyes moist with dreams of faraway places. They thought he was lonely in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1028,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1028"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33095,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33083\/revisions\/33095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}