F M Stringer

Wood Games

As boys we galloped Turkey Swamp on dream
steeds. Lips chapped, cheeks flushed. Rubied
our palms on black-gum bark. Galloped between
the leaning pitch pines, kicking plumes of spores
up columns of light. Yelping, bellowing, primed
as hounds awoken by their names, the language of boys
being after all the language of pursuit. And if
one’s the hunter (the cowboy, the cop), the other—
I hid beneath a downed cedar, thinking you might
mistake me for its shadow. Yet how I ached to be found.
To be wanted. To make my last stand, be killed
in action. Then rise, resurrected, ride to a hundred more
last stands, spectacular deaths. Brother, it’s been so long.
It’s getting dark. I’m still waiting for you to find me.

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F M Stringer is from New Jersey. His poems can be found in The Penn Review, North American Review, West Trade Review, RHINO and elsewhere. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and dogs.