The Hilly Sparse Heart of Texas

Blanco River before sunrise
Blanco, Texas

Morning begins at freezing

unseasonably unwarm

asking for clothes I don’t have

hills steeper than yesterday

steeper than ever

so steep that three

yes there, I had to walk

thanks to them I kept warm

except for hurting fingernails

and numb toes  

but the wind was kind

the sky presented no fear

and cars scared other bikers

other places 

a neighborhood of ranches

locked gates

about a mile apart

I suppose therefore

each has some six-hundred acres

high goat fences, cattle, wild deer

forty miles til I found a café

the Double D in Comfort

and comfort it was

this shack’s food was excellent

did I ask for a box?

leave some and ride on?

or did I eat it all?

you tell me

forty miles of hills and cold

forty miles of hills and cold  

then twenty more to Kerrville

and on the way I met her

rather her white ghost

leaning on a fence

plastic flowers mark the end

was she careless? drunk?

I imagine a line to its source

pickup truck Texan stopped to pick up a girl?

Texas, where the rules aren’t always clear

as Mama would say, things took a turn.

I love her like my own.  

my DNA specially venturesome

specially sick

casts its own monument to loneness 

Holiday Creek east of Comfort, Texas

cypress giants hog the water

in a thorny land

immense, sturdy, hard

like I am becoming