Bad Choices Good Sunsets

by Eric Roy

Slowriding down Cemetery Road, late December.
Next to me, nobody now watches paints & palominos

graze the orchard behind lines of vined wire fence.
We broke all three—the trees, the horses, the land

& on the horizon distant houses glint like silver sequins
inside tears, like container ships about to slip over

an ocean plain. How is it what we need we’re not even
aware of yet? What cool, neutral slice of pickled ginger

could be set inside our heads? Instead, I whistle the only
way I can, involuntarily, a kiss blown in disbelief

circling cemeteries in a dark cloud spitting out dark birds,
rain held in its throat like practiced words, navigating

smoke. Pollution explosion wildfire, duck & cover, smoke.
Turning into haze that enhances our sun’s infected color.