‘I always thought I would marry
a rancher’, you said.
Thought or dreamed, I thought.

He would be unlike me in every way.

At dusk he would ride in
tall, straight, hard
covered in dust,
eyes in a permanent squint
boot leather skin
silent.

Rarely
he would simply take you
without ceremony,
as a bull or a stallion would
you smelling of onions or apples
he of dust, fire, sage, himself, horses, saddles.

After, out on the porch, smoking a cheroot,
He would say something
about a broken fence or an injured calf.

And you would feel every inch a woman.

JGL