Adam Tavel
 

A Horse Named
Obligation
 
 
 
 
 

I rode to Toledo on a horse named Obligation and the rain poured as wine pours thick and unrelenting. I watched as the landscape change from mountain to hill to flat line, the cornfields endless like the hate of a bigot his skin a hollow victory in a wicked and soulless world. West, but not really West, the bellies of farmers boasted beer and high school football, vacant wives and trucker turnpikes, past Cleveland and the sun a hermit king, blinds down, hiding his face from the rabble, jackhammer coffee in my veins, no rest for the weary they say, no virgin pillow for this head, so I dug my spurs into the beast and traveled on, the sky a broken widow her heart's dam flooded drenching us all.

  (c)Tavel 2004