Brett Elizabeth Jenkins

Cowboy Dream

Anne Sexton shows up on my doorstep in cowboy

boots and we think about hunger together. Our spurs

clink idly beside each other like tiny ferris wheels,

rusty in their spur-cages. I turn to her and say God, Anne.

What the fuck are spurs even for? And she teaches me

about directing horses, the way you would direct

your hunger. How to press your desires into them.

You have a lot to learn, she says to me. I let her press

a spur into the heel of my hand until it draws a small

amount of blood. Yes, this too is poetry, she says.