On Voice

Sometimes coffee don’t make my eyes see better

Or my legs be strong enough

For this bow-legged walkin

But you know when voice glow like different kinds of light?

You know when people put words

In their palms for us all to watch how they and

Different shades of them sound when they

Headlong into one another down the furrows

That an old woman once used for the

Telling about your tomorrow years?

Lift them up here to look see how they

Twirl each other like cowboys with packed lips and

Low hats do gals with strong backs and

Stronger guts. Them all wink like stars gone

Fireflies in purling water we stew for the

Crank late night on frontier. I said I knock back cups of

Joe in a far side range,

But only to grab that calf

Half in half out by the ankles and pull

Like dreams do that yeared man hunched and rocking and

Working his beat fiddle and he only look up twice

A night so you better not miss the soft diddy bar lights

Lick and lip on his well rained eyes.

That calf’ll get strong legs soon enough too

If you just watched. And even though

Cowboys don’t talk much,

You should see the maps
Running their hands.