Rule of Threes
after “Boot Theory” by Richard Siken
A horse walks into a bar—
The bartender ignores the horse, absorbed in the repetitive motions of his labors, seeking respite in work from the daytime worries that crowd his mind, clamoring for attention like impatient patrons. The horse takes it all in: pectoral muscles pulsing beneath the bartender’s undershirt, hands that diligently pummel fruit, then tip the muddled mess into endless pitchers of sangria. The horse waits all night for the punchline that is supposed to follow the setup of sweat puddling in the hollow under the bartender’s Adam’s apple, but it never comes.
A horse walks into a bar—
The bartender nods at the horse and waves him over to his reserved spot, corner booth. Men are milling about, but the horse only has eyes for the boy on stage rasping song after smoky song into the air above their heads. Everything about the boy is sharp, from the pressed pleats of his slacks to the buckknife jut of his cheekbones. At last call the boy alights from the stage, gaze resting on the horse for one electric moment before crowning a king from among the men on the dancefloor, guiding him not-quite-gently to a waiting cab.
A horse walks into a bar—
The bartender, you this time, looks at the horse and sees the same sad brown eyes as the first boy you desired. You step onto the bar, splintered surface clammy with gin grime and lime rinds. With no overture, you throw one leg over the horse’s back. The horse navigates its way between packed tables, tipped chairs, out the exit. Horse and rider are backlit for a moment by the mustard-stain smear of the city lights before disappearing west down Route 40, out of sight.
When We Kiss, He Forgets the Geese
He catches my mouth at the edge of the lake and presses into my lips a weekend’s worth of longing, of neglecting desire in front of family for decorum’s sake. He dives into my lips like Lethe, river of forgetfulness washing from his mind the loaf of white bread hanging from his hand. The geese that patrol the lakeshore have never known fear long enough to need to forget it. They advance in twos and threes, flat-footing their way across the dew-wet grass, determination a blinder that blocks out everything but the bread bag dangling a lazy elliptical as he lifts both hands to pull me up to him, on the tips of my toes. When the geese attack it all happens at once: his shout into my mouth, gravity remembering I am subject to its laws and pulling me down to the grass, his sling-shot release of the bag out over the lake to draw away the horde so that he, too, can fall back to earth, can reach out for me, can return to the work of erasing the world around us.
