GIDDY-UP, LITTLE DOGGY
Paul Weinman
Sporadic thoughts of fingertips
doing hoppity-hop over your skin
caused me to lose my place
in listing people who'd died of drugs
last week. Those smooth slopes
of thighs were the most diverting
even causing my left hand
to raise up, gallop across your prairie.
I'd do a drag of smoke to slow
settle into a slower trot. But then
the corral loomed up, its gate ajar.
I tried to pull back with that child
smothered by her mother in Chicago
came up for count. But I lost hold
reins flapped wildly, heels jammed
in stirrups with that bucking
neighing frantically to finally slow
heavy-breathed at the trough
a final toke at dismounting.
