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WHISTLING SHADE |
by Alice Dugan
He was proud of the Christmas gift pony,
who grazed with his milkers, he a brown shirker
among black and white milkers, each of whom
saw her duty clear and paid her rent.
The Christmas gift pony was named Buster,
given with harness with buggy with hope;
crop prices good, the boys enough grown
to work. If the pony was not quite the pet
they wanted, did they ever tell—how Buster
stopped to chomp on grass and Peg with her
jam sandwich packed, piano lesson next town over,
couldn’t get him going again?
Try to catch him, ride out to get the cows—
he hid. Try to saddle him, Buster sucked
in a barrel of air which he’d hold and hold
and hold until the last tug of cinch
and then let go and the saddle slid. Buster
was not loved. Who knows how he died. At night
the father did his books: if he bought a toothpick
he wrote it down. Maybe he entered Buster
as a loss. He prayed for health and prosperity.
He was proud of the way his books looked.