night trees

in the pecan orchard at dusk
a girl wearing a violet skirt
sights the first star of evening and
extends uncanny hands as if
to touch the timeless goddess.
she takes off her cotton blouse
to ride the night as the huntress.
she bares her breasts to the cows
ambling by the pasture fence.
unmoved by her sense of loss,
unconcerned with her nakedness,
they saunter into the dark.

she rides beneath a live oak’s
huge limbs and recalls shadows
where wood nymphs got dirty knees
pleasuring their randy cowboys,
and rock circles of campfires where
midnight lovers stole fiery trysts.
she guides her star-eyed stallion
by the pavilion, long collapsed,
where ranch hands and careless girls
danced to fiddles and squeeze boxes
under strands of electric lights
and Mexican paper cuts.

the hickory tree is blackness
in the moon’s primordial face.
an owl hoots in its branches at
the same frequency as her breath,
and a nightjar’s unanswered calls
remembers an early death.
as the old man lights a candle
and pulls the door shut, he has
an odd feeling of being watched.
she stands in the damp chill night,
stripped to the waist, trembling,
unable to speak his name.