Thomas Mixon

Break of Day

On dark mornings I go walking in the frozen tracks the trucks I don’t look out for made, gloves askew, head turned down, eardrums stuffed with sticky rhymes from skeletal verses, and hoof prints dirt road petrified, which I ascribe to horses, which can’t be right, it must be boars, escaped from rich folks’ hunting grounds, game preserve across the highway, and the broken fence forbears its tale, not that I’d listen, as the ledge begins to crest, and only then do I look up to verify that I’m alone, to make sure I’m not asked to console another passerby, that I won’t jump,

I won’t, I haven’t yet and have no plans to start, and I’m relieved by the diluted sun paltering with clouds, sprawling landscape empty of a single soul who wants to sell me hope, and it’s a joy to turn around and unexplain myself to scalloped ground, faltering, then falling.