Bolting into Throat

First, somebody’s got to run. There’s no sportin it otherwise. Everybody needs to be drunkon sun first, then just straight drunk, and therewill be rotted-tooth cackling, dog-tired horsesspewing snot, whips slashing gashes in deadair. But somebody has to run like he needsa place he can’t see, like Jesus blew a whistle.The hunt needs a man who finally believesthe murmured come-ons of that blaring star,who lingers a second too long in the inflamedtwist of a gospel lyric, and thinks that being freejust may be that muted flash at the other endof his pointed finger. Over there, out there, overyonder, north, always north, he chants, his wholebody primed, fixed on a fleeting and luminousorchestra. But first he’s got to run. Every wordhe utters will suddenly drip with a stupid, sugaryfaith, his first few halting steps click into rhythm,and the night will lunge forward to scar him.Sometimes he is minutes gone, maybe hours,sometimes a day—but he will come to realizethat all land is throat, that it swallows and swallowsthen dribbles a dust that lies and calls itself light.The fear that he’s begun a journey that has alreadyended sparks the stench, the sweet blade-edgedsalt that just barely changes his skin. And the dogdoesn’t know why it hates or what it hates, justthat Negro blur and the damn repeated stink of it. The old hound’s heart is everything, a giddy bluemuscle that thumps as backbeat for its flailing rage.It fevers against the leash, snorting the deep bowlof the gone man’s hat, his one stiffened gray sock,an old work shirt. The dog’s whole body aches withwhat it was born to do. There’s just no sport in itotherwise. The hunters whoop and strain forwardon their steeds, addicts for the thrill of the chase.Even the stars are crazed, blasting the length ofthe quest with northern light, leading the huntersand the game to their different versions of free.