TOGETHER

                                    And note this, dear dead doctor:
                                    When we sleep, our legs twitch,
                                    And not from the hunt
                                    But from trying to run away.
                                                   – Gary Soto (“Dr. Freud, Please”)

A Red Tail pair in Blue Oak tops, buff breasts bared
glow at first light, watch over their dark shoulders
as I feed hay, speak to horses, winter mornings

to wonder about the everyday routines that tie us
to animals, to a place and time by the sun. The deer
would lay down where the barn stands now

over a shrinking stack of bales, a short walk
to metal mangers as I look back through the eyes
of the house to see you moving to the woodstove,

curls of Manzanita smoke disappear into the gray.
We have camped in the trail between canyons of wild
pad and hoof, claimed the space they walk around

and would take back should we be gone for long
without our habits holding what we’ve done together,
together—for this moment we hold our ground.