Susan Laughter Meyers writes:
“This poem was inspired by Boccherini’s Guitar
Quintet #4 in D Major. I was listening to
it while writing, and soon the music became
the poem.”
Guitar
On any given night it picks its way
down the canyon, one step
almost in front of the other—agile enough
to slip by whatever spells trouble.
Forget fear. It slides down rocks, if it has to,
to reach bottom. By day, a red bandana
or straw hat, and why not?
No map, just crosshatch and parallel.
It inhales the heat, and the pinched cold
creeping off the mountain.
It lives alone, turns its back to the wolves.
Say it's a tin cup with bent handle.
Peyote in full bloom. A train
pulling rich cargo across the horizon.
Tequila. A thumbnail piercing the skin
of a lime, the ripe shower that follows.
First published in Crazyhorse; rptd. in
Keep and Give Away (University of South Carolina Press, 2006).
