Monstrous night, great wing of no
weight. These stars slotted in chinks
between dark and dark, sequestered,
numb, and undone in the racket of ever …
Tent flap. Plains breeze. Pre-sleep’s
a cattle guard my mind’s caught
its hoof in; here and not
here, how hard I want
not to be isolate — embryonic on
a sage-powdered bleakness where borders
fall back and swarm in in sickening waves and
something like yearning Catherine-wheels out
from its hub under ribs, mouthing
drowsed list of false stops: Heart
Butte, Dupuyer, Troy, and on where
prairie dogs are nervous clerics at prayer
on their haunches, eyeing us
sideways. Soaked in candescent blue
off Dead Man’s Basin, we watch frantic
silhouettes on our tent’s dim
screen, hear tiny burr-like claws
scritching in grit and this fussing’s
a mother blessing our fevered
fall into sleep where our bodies make
covenants and trade heat with the earth.