Poetry Expansion- 1

7

The broken branded cowboy

looks upon the grassy plains,

saddled up tight,

with equal parts coffee and whiskey in his stomach.

He wonders how far it all goes,

surely the horizon has to end somewhere.

Maybe if he rides fast enough,

he can reach the place

where the grass and the sky collide.

He will try tomorrow, maybe.

Today, he has cattle to move.

There will always be cattle to move.

Expansion

The Cowboy is branded, a Y on his ass for a brother long since passed, and the Cowboy is broken like the fence on the far edge of the pasture. Saddled up tight, he looks upon the grassy plain with equal parts coffee and whiskey in his stomach. He wonders how far it all goes. He knows what’s beyond that hill and what’s beyond the one after that and what’s over those mountains on the other side of the broken fence. He’s been told about what’s over the river and the state line and across the ocean. But how far does it all actually go, he wonders? What’s past heaven and is this the closest he can get to it? Maybe if he rides fast enough, he can reach that place, where the grass and the sky collide and the mountains and rivers fall away. Maybe he will try tomorrow. Or the next day. Today, a fence on the far edge of the pasture needs fixing. Today, he has cattle to move, but there will always be cattle to move.