written in verse
in similar style of
a wagon train's rough
trail, the poetry built from
the clay sparkling with mica
chips in the ruts slowly dislodges
itself from the spokes only to be picked
up by a horse delivering the Pony Express
mail, only to be picked up by a stagecoach,

The Wheel,
a diary of the
past few years
of the women's lives,
so you can see why the
stories travel far; to saloons,
livery stables, and mostly circulating
to the Wells Fargo office and the bank,

tales of mismanagement,
passion, mismanagement of
passion, and corrupt meanderings
leave a pulp fiction rawhide portfolio as
collateral for a bordello to sprout in a western
Colorado town, and that author?

tired, but with a braided spirit.

secretly the madam
makes her walk to the
heavily secured barn every
afternoon before the evening's
bordello clientele consume her
presence of cleavage until the twilight
softly snuffs out the red light -

what is it she does in
that locked barn for a few
seasons? Private. It stays in
the mind long after the ride is done.
We will know what madam was doing
in that barn for those few seasons one day
not so far away. We know this because we know
the author knows.

the aspens
have kept the
author's secret
for a few seasons
now, and those aspens
only a week away from summer
solstice sit in a grove meditating in
full leaves, and the whiskey has deep
roots too where the white bark reflects
time's anebriated ghosts in the Mason jar
swirling a breath of strong amber, reminding
the author of the heart's first taste of fire.

It's a place of solitude where spirits commune
where the author takes notice of the
great art of writing western
pulp fiction

and

where endings are beginnings.

© Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist