Swayby Gary Short
A noose of moonlight—I think I see what my father saw
that night when he went out
to the leaning barn—he followed the light,
scared up some rope in the tack room
to toss over the beam.The wind rending itself
through barbed fences.I found him
the next morning,kneeling on a hay bale, his head
in his hands,
under the dangling rope
he'd left unknotted.Asterisks of ice on the glass.
Frozen stars to look past.He was chilled and wretched.
The night had made a penitent of him.
Under the thrum of winter wind, his sobs.The bay mare was unimpressed.
The rafters creaked like a boat.
Steam rising
from the yellow palace of hay bales.The wind blows and turns
another page.Oddly elating
to see him that way.
For the first time in yearsit was easy to reach for him.
I led him back to the house,the rope left there
swaying.