On the Plain of Smokes, and: Ornamental Horses, and: Still Life with Jogger, and: The Morning Poems, and: Outside Modesto, and: Rivers, Boats, and Cities, and: In November

THE TOM McAFEE discovery feature R. D. King R. D. King lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. He presently works as a draftsman for the US Forest Service. The Tom McAfee Discovery Feature is a continuing series to showcase the work of an outstanding young poet who has not yet published a book. The prize is funded by the family and friends of Tom McAfee. ON THE PLAIN OF SMOKES / R. D. King The sky was neither blue npr white. It was yellow, and the small scattered clouds had appeared quite suddenly like explosions. Beside the diaphanous pool she lay on a vinyl-covered chaise lounge. It was morning. It was already warm when she broke into a sweat and then she wanted not to be a part of it anymore, so she moved beneath the white-fringed umbrella where she told her desperate tale— to the boy, and the white hibiscus. The Missouri Review · 233 ORNAMENTAL HORSES / R. D. King An hour before dusk the little boys walk out into the rust-colored weeds and search for tadpoles in the stagnant water at a time when the wind often diminishes. So nothing moves except for the knees in their blue jeans and the bare backs and the arms and heads and the restless leaves on the cottonwood above them. I watch as each approaches his separate pool. One boy takes a clear plastic bag from his pocket and the pocket remains out like a flap. Water moves slowly and peacefully in the canal but I cannot see it from this window. Nor can the boys who are as quiet as the water that passes beyond them and the vine bank. They are so quiet I suspect any noise will interfere in their business. Or so it happens that they are quiet this evening. Yet in the end they succumb to the wet and squirmy product of their capture. He starts giggling. He holds out his hand and calls for his brother to look. The sharp, illuminating light does not yet distract us. In fact the boys manage to show themselves very cleverly in this light among the rust-colored weeds and stagnant water. Beyond them on the land beside the canal two horses have come up to the barbed-wire fence and swung their heads out and above the wire. Each horse watches quietly with one eye. There is a golden sheen to their coats but they are the same color as the weeds. 234 · The Missouri Review STILL LIFE WITH JOGGER / R. D. King The bay at the end of the block jumped up blue. Above the street in black thickets the cypresses rose. Small, neat houses stood together with their rock walls, ivies, and weathered fences—white curtains drawn against the morning sun. Too weak to dry the condensation on the windows, the winter light splashed the houses' faces where it crept between the cypress trunks. On the front step collecting dew this morning's paper waited. Atop the garden gate where sunlight sparkled in her fur, someone's cat waited, watching nothing. The street darkened under the canopy. The bay at the end of the block jumped up, the blue growing, getting stronger. The Missouri Review · 235 THE MORNING POEMS / R. D. King Through the startling, suddenly retooled frame of an open window, the young poplar shakes its shiny, waxen leaves. Beetles scale the screen's grid. The rockrose loses its edgeless, pink flowers. Already it's too hot to venture outside. So I choose to spend this fine morning reading poems and admiring these last flowersbig burden of thirst building inside me. 236 · The Missouri Review OUTSIDE MODESTO / R. D. King She was black and he was white. They rode in a big car with bad paint and the muffler was tied-up with wire. She was driving. He was stretched-out in the front. A little wind was stumbling through the nut orchard. Evening was coming on. There were snakes on the road, languid with the heat, and she drove over them. They stopped at a burger stand off the county road. It was hardly a town. He went to the window...