Come and Go

Sun-burnt baby
dressed in black:
bikini, denim pants, boots, cowboy hat.
The faint sheens of sunset are on the horizon,
Chelsea tromps through browning grass,
Sister pulls you both along with a blue rope.

That Welfare horse,
brown coat gleaming,
will wander through a broken fence
and get hit by a speeding car,
a car with no conscience, driving away
while she lies there bleeding in the road.

Sister will eventually move away
and comes back crying, confessions in hand.
That horse will die ten years later,
fattened on oats, let to live because of pleading faces.
And you, that girl who lived under the sky all those summers,
well you will grow up too, but not easily,
and when you return it will be with head held high—
triumphant smile and eyes flashing—
knowing you will never again need a sister or anybody
to jerk you along with a knotted blue rope.