PoetryAloud

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Lee Kissling Reads

Ride Lonesome

Lonesome is the name of the horse – hence
Ride Lonesome. I’m not sure how I feel about
projecting human emotions onto animals. Or onto
inanimate objects – most people riding a streetcar
named Desire are only going to the bank or post office.
The farm people going to Mount Zion in Iowa
are neither Zionists nor anywhere close to
a mountain.

 
Not sure how I feel about riding this horse Lonesome.
He does seem to know the way, at least. Probably,
he’s going someplace lonely. But maybe, wherever
he’s taking me, there will be another horse and they will
nicker and rub their long noses, go for a meal together
in the new green grass of springtime, and I’ll just
wait by a fencepost, and think him up 
a new name.

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