Mosquito-thick headlights wash the road amber. My skin is gray. In my bones something sleeps. Their backs hammock sunset, and with imperial glances they look at the uneaten grass, their nostrils pinching the white air. Bales are the piratical chests they covet.
Blinders gone, the trails hoofed down, they shake their pulled-at manes like dustmops.
They need no fences, even saddle-stripped. Their haunches unflex in the weight of just themselves, the marks from dulled spurs still stinging a little. But they know the time shadows lengthen, and are judicial. They imagine the stirrups corseting their ribs, the bits between teeth, then they let their shadows grow with their silence. As they eat, carrying a belly or a backful, they nuzzle the grass, and need no fences.