Duck, Outer Banks, North Carolina, 2016
For Lisa
It may just be these days, passing. Suddenly,
everything shares history with a grist of bones-
not-quite-buried in sand. The fragrance of
mustangs neighing in high grass—descendants
of horses brought here by a Spanish king—is as
miraculous as my own gamy scent, harnessed
by explorers who tried but failed to tame wild-
ness, then, fearful, ran away, but
these pure breeds, their numbers waning, pose,
content to linger among the cypress stumps and
residuum of a nineteenth century hurricane,
the box and snapping turtles, purple martins,
keeping their eyes on a hungry boar nearby. We
visitors are a chestnut-brown mirage turned pensive
as the horses, the left-behinds, who see our nostrils
flare in brambles of blueberries, grapes, persimmons.
everything shares history with a grist of bones-
not-quite-buried in sand. The fragrance of
mustangs neighing in high grass—descendants
of horses brought here by a Spanish king—is as
miraculous as my own gamy scent, harnessed
by explorers who tried but failed to tame wild-
ness, then, fearful, ran away, but
these pure breeds, their numbers waning, pose,
content to linger among the cypress stumps and
residuum of a nineteenth century hurricane,
the box and snapping turtles, purple martins,
keeping their eyes on a hungry boar nearby. We
visitors are a chestnut-brown mirage turned pensive
as the horses, the left-behinds, who see our nostrils
flare in brambles of blueberries, grapes, persimmons.
Lynne Thompson is Poet Laureate for the city of Los Angeles. Her most recent collection of poems, Fretwork, was selected by Jane Hirshfield for the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and published in 2019. A multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, Thompson is the author of Beg No Pardon and Start With A Small Guitar and her work has been widely published and anthologized including in New England Review, Colorado Review, Pleiades, and Best American Poetry 2020, among others. Thompson serves on the Boards of Directors of Cave Canem and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Art: Alan Levine, Public Domain