Jim Bilt

A cowboy love story...

Jim Bilt held the cracked leather reigns split,
Dust canyons formed in his swollen knuckles,
Disfigured fingers a monkey’s fist of rope,
The sweat crystal on his nose under shadow thrown from  a sun-bleached hat,
A dry world of scrub and barbed wire,
Rusty tin and oaks bent,
Upside down in the prism hanging from his crooked beak,

He stood in broken boots in a sharp puddle of his own shade,
Heels buried in the soft brown powder of the round pen,
Where long dead men spilled blood,
Where the hooves of wilder horses were made to stand still,
In the field the bones speak,
The old nails back themselves out,
Jim Bilt swallowed his spit and watched her eyes,

She refused to blink,
But stared back at him through muddy pupils swimming,
Wide and alert and reading him – waiting for him,
Her black hair stuck to her neck,
Her chest was full and heaving,
Her waist high,
Her legs strong,
She had broken his heart and was testing the limits of his love,

The wrangler let the reigns slide through his fingers,
So soft and slow over what tough years had hardened,
He lowered himself before her,
Offered his head to be taken from his body,
Beneath the hot sun where nothing moved,
They spoke in soft whispers,
In silence,
To decide if the Devil had gone,
His heart struggled to find enough blood to fill his body,
But the limits of his love were endless,
She bent a knee,
And then another,
Until she was on the ground before him and resting her head on his chest,
Crying,
Jim Bilt take me home.

5.11.2011