Brandon Rushton
Equine Elegy
Figure it’s November. Twenty two miles outside Indiana
and the heat cuts out. There is a sign to be cautious
of the crosswinds. The highway forces travelers to pass
policemen probing a car in a ravine. Supermarket,
Dairy Queen, cemetery—bury your horses. At a service
station, the young boy with the family in the station wagon
grows frustrated with these forced close quarters and with
a sharpie writes sex across the stall in the men’s room.
Strip mall, cinema, cemetery—bury your horses. For the next hour
all he can think about is the things he could do
to the condom he bought like a gumball in the bathroom.
Cornfield, pasture, pasture, schoolhouse, pasture,
cemetery—bury your horses. On the other side of Indiana,
figure it’s the driveway. Take a headcount of the herd
and like all things picking up steam wish them well as they gallop west
surely to end up at the bottom of the coastal cliffs of America.
Equine Elegy
A young man puts on the knee-high boots of a young woman’s
father to help her water and hay the horses.
Dead of winter. The barn. The barn’s three pull-string bulbs.
Their naked bodies find cadence in the hum
of the power-lines and evening. It will still be an hour
before her parents are home.
A young woman sitting on the fence tells a young man
if they play their cards right they might have
a full house. Both of them are now unintentionally
uncomfortable. She only meant a hand to bet on.
When the young man and young woman feel old
enough to have regrets, they do. They push their car
off a cliff and swim as far off the coast as they can.
In hindsight, the hind legs were the most important
part of the story nobody at the barn party
would get behind.
Equine Elegy
There is no headcount. There is no herd. There is no young
woman or young man haunting any hay barn
in any state from here to the coastal cliffs. There has been
a lawnmower idling for weeks on the edge
of a meadow. There is a can of spray paint at the bottom
of a ladder-less water tower. There is a ladder
leaning on the supermarket’s awning. Only wind hangs
from its rungs. Elementary swings sigh.
The tires of the car under the tarp rot dry. The horse is in the barn.
If she actually had eyes in the back of her head
she would have been able to see everything creeping up
behind her. The horse in the barn is bones.
It is again what it was then. No one, now, left to worry
whether to bridle or to bury.
Brandon Rushton’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Journal, CutBank, Passages North, and others. He holds an MFA from the University of South Carolina where he served as the editor of the literary journal Yemassee, and continues to teach writing. Born and raised in Michigan, he now lives (with Mara and Juan) and writes in Charleston, South Carolina.
Return to January 2016 Edition
Figure it’s November. Twenty two miles outside Indiana
and the heat cuts out. There is a sign to be cautious
of the crosswinds. The highway forces travelers to pass
policemen probing a car in a ravine. Supermarket,
Dairy Queen, cemetery—bury your horses. At a service
station, the young boy with the family in the station wagon
grows frustrated with these forced close quarters and with
a sharpie writes sex across the stall in the men’s room.
Strip mall, cinema, cemetery—bury your horses. For the next hour
all he can think about is the things he could do
to the condom he bought like a gumball in the bathroom.
Cornfield, pasture, pasture, schoolhouse, pasture,
cemetery—bury your horses. On the other side of Indiana,
figure it’s the driveway. Take a headcount of the herd
and like all things picking up steam wish them well as they gallop west
surely to end up at the bottom of the coastal cliffs of America.
Equine Elegy
A young man puts on the knee-high boots of a young woman’s
father to help her water and hay the horses.
Dead of winter. The barn. The barn’s three pull-string bulbs.
Their naked bodies find cadence in the hum
of the power-lines and evening. It will still be an hour
before her parents are home.
A young woman sitting on the fence tells a young man
if they play their cards right they might have
a full house. Both of them are now unintentionally
uncomfortable. She only meant a hand to bet on.
When the young man and young woman feel old
enough to have regrets, they do. They push their car
off a cliff and swim as far off the coast as they can.
In hindsight, the hind legs were the most important
part of the story nobody at the barn party
would get behind.
Equine Elegy
There is no headcount. There is no herd. There is no young
woman or young man haunting any hay barn
in any state from here to the coastal cliffs. There has been
a lawnmower idling for weeks on the edge
of a meadow. There is a can of spray paint at the bottom
of a ladder-less water tower. There is a ladder
leaning on the supermarket’s awning. Only wind hangs
from its rungs. Elementary swings sigh.
The tires of the car under the tarp rot dry. The horse is in the barn.
If she actually had eyes in the back of her head
she would have been able to see everything creeping up
behind her. The horse in the barn is bones.
It is again what it was then. No one, now, left to worry
whether to bridle or to bury.
Brandon Rushton’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Journal, CutBank, Passages North, and others. He holds an MFA from the University of South Carolina where he served as the editor of the literary journal Yemassee, and continues to teach writing. Born and raised in Michigan, he now lives (with Mara and Juan) and writes in Charleston, South Carolina.
Return to January 2016 Edition
