Past Life Regression: Spur
by Riley O'Mearns
She could beckon the mellow moon with just a blueward look.
Of all the cowboys rolling in the pasture, she was the tipsiest
on lack of treeline—I'll friend me some fairies, she'd say—other
outlaws slanted their hat brims for fear of curses. Community
is a cowboy's making. She ponied magic and an open mind
as the stars campfired around her, as the bodies stacked
their spheres tall and turvy, and she quieted their entropy.
She had that way about her withers. Imposing, maybe,
but tensed like strength, not worry. And I, the lover of her
blatant unwaver, sat at the bottom of a tin can, gruel
boiling around me. I wanted the gender of her rodeo and a kiss
from bloody lips. I've been barnsour too long, a spoiled horse
rotting in the stable. Perhaps calved too early, I wanted her
lasso to slip around my waist and give me a reason not to pull
the opposite way. But like all small-town swindlers, she broke
clean after showing me how to make the sound of a mountain
falling to its knees. I wandered into the woods and found
each fairy crawling in the mud, wingless.
I want the mystery ruined. Teach me, I say, teach me
how to corral her secrets I tried to collect, the chitin-thin
veil she wore now a melted mess on the forest floor.
A nothing from the green. Her branding hot on my heart.