RACETRACK

In the vague

cloudy sun, the old man

waits against the rail

where lathered horses

fidget in starting gates,

colors flap

like flags

under the jockeys'

delicate whips. 

              And here

he scribbles

his wife's name,

her blue eyes

flash, clouds break,

and the song

of the starting bell

dents the hollow air.

CATCHING THE BENDING LIGHT IN BURWELL, NEBRASKA

The dirt is a hollow devil that twists

into one cloud, pulls down the slender sky

where mile after mile lines fall into infinity,

fall into the blue earth, a gold stroke

against a blue abstraction.  One man stands

in his field, the thorns of his life in his granite

hands, his steps long into day. All this sky,

he thinks, all this dust, my days are this

equation: my life is geometry

and reaches into time, runs out alone

to the kiss and promise of a bent line.

Michael Catherwood's poetry has appeared in many magazines, including Agni, Black Warrior Review, Borderlands, Briar Cliff Review, Ecletica, Georgetown Review, Hawai'i Review, Kansas Quarterly, Laurel Review, Louisiana Literature, Mankato Poetry Review, Midwest Poetry Review, Midwest Quarterly, Nebraska Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Red River Review, South Dakota Review.  His first book of poems, Dare, was published by Backwaters Press in 2006.