The Distance, by Olivia Cantadori

My daydreams like streams

Collect where blue jeans ripple on bare feet.

It’s an unbroken image,

A black bird obstructing the sun.

My nights are of rodeos, beat magic, Samba Rock and waiting tables.

Seats are filled with grueling eyes, mixing tears, making wine.

I take empty plates in a loop,

Watch bare legs in summertime.

Always the footage hisses like Eden snakes

Throwing the old fables in my eyes,

Riding waves of film and dancing so high that even Rawhide!

Cowboys took the time to build graves, kiss, and die.

I once shot at the western front, watched it slip away through the screen.

What a dream and what a ghost is the west, the south too!

No Brazil, no cowboys, just red dust. Sinatra interrupts

In a diner with mugs of bacon and oil-cracked teeth.

My sister winces and smiles at

The maturity of failure, the stagnation of change.

I blink myself unbodied in slivers of running tape,

Racing on tearing horses in cities where streets empty out

Into the dim bazaar of dreams.

— Olivia Cantadori