In the now of nighttime

A poem by Isabella Triana

Textile Art by Джиллиан Тамаки

---

in the now of nighttime, 

alone in the field 
behind the gas station 
I stop at for a coffee 
on my way, is the saddest 
horse I've ever seen. 

The station store is padlocked shut, 
dark, but for the dying neon glow 
of an OPE 24 H S sign flickering 
in the window.

Who was it that told me: 
the problem with my generation 
was our search for mirrors to look in, 
more often than windows to look out of?

Was it you?
I call out to the horse,
slipping five quarters into the slot
of a vending machine I find in the lot 
near his dry, dead acre. I settle
for a coke, stay standing there

under our flickering, neon sun
goldenrods burst up between 
fence posts & the horse is still 
just staring, his eyes soft & wet 
like an oyster's insides

& soon I’ll leave without him, 
& the two of us will be alone again 
& I could live on like this, 
if I’d like to
with one chair 
& one spoon

or else I could get out there, 
go anywhere else, 
host dinner guests,
achieve relative success. 

Either is possible, 
I think to the horse, 
which is the saddest horse I’ve ever seen
& i watch the thought float towards him, 
a speck of dust in a neon sun shaft. 

But then it hovers, stops there. 
Neither happens.
The happening 
just keeps hovering 
& the split second
before a glass shatters
fills up a whole lifetime.

What I meant to say was, 
You'll come too
but he wouldn’t have heard me, 
& I wouldn't have known any better.

---

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