After you've gone: Horses, Beer, Cigarettes by Trish Saunders

She calls across the pasture. 

Over here, I answer. 

Grasses shrink 

from her big yellow teeth 

as she approaches—

weeds don’t know

a mare’s gentleness. 

And I still miss you. 

Clouds pause.

Wildflowers hurtle

seeds into cracks

beneath the interstate,

open into 

poppies

that catch fire 

in the sunset. 

And I still miss you.

Ancient forests are burning.

Smoke dissipates, like exhaust

from an old bus, 

like the Rainier beer we poured over cemetery grass,

killing it. And I still miss you. 

The rain will return,

it always does. The wind

will have business elsewhere—

trees to terrorize, 

crows’ feathers to blow across a river. 

And I still miss you. 

Trish Saunders lives in Seattle, works as a freelance editor, and has published poems in numerous publications.