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Self-Portrait As A Pale Windsock
	Everywhere my kin people are discovering happiness with kabob sticks poking their fingers Even after the chicken is sucked off the skewer the feathers fly out of the truck returning to Indiana Here are the keys to the pontoon of my feelings Have you ever thought about the orange juice you drink right there how it divorced the orange how the orange divorced the orange tree The tree was never alone There was always Papaw John tending the grove Everyone here has a cousin named Margo You just might not know it yet She has a balloon budget It is enormous She spends more time with the homeblown neon clouds than with you All dolled up for the party you've put fresh feathers in your hair There's a fork in the potatoes and no one claims it I believe it belongs to you Of course I can't be certain but I can certainly try It takes a lot of anchors to hold down a tablecloth It takes a lot of memory to catch every single cartwheel you perform in the tall grass like impossible hairs on Margo's belly I'm on the porch with some poems Papaw John Everyone's shoes Indigestible dioramas He is waiting for the right moment to pick the cherry tomatoes from the salad and unleash them back into the garden It’s so absurd like practicing practicality on a house boat because Papaw John loves cherry tomatoes! It felt like such a simple thing this morning to find a patriotic hat Margo has popped the green balloon Papaw John tells you a group of zebras is called a dazzle I know it's too late now and you've already taken off your sandals but next time remember if you arrive before us you bring the corn and set it anywhere you'd like
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Better Horse Head
	Despite the light in my steps leading the hired help back to the place where I keep the shovel there is a way my Horse Head presses against the dust that tangles the warmth. My Horse Head comes in many colors— the color of roasting the color of the most private parts of withered cowboys the color of America at sunset— some more pleasing than others. May I unveil my Horse Head to you? Bumbling into the street my Horse Head without a clue as to what the traffic signals mean. Making all sorts of racket my Horse Head gallops between the poorly parked cars and their impossible difference between curb-sat and trotting. My Horse Head never stops. My Horse Head at random lets his body go— into the intersection unwieldy in the mayor's pasture plump thanks to the oats. My Horse Head chomps. My Horse Head in the cupboard snarling holes in the box. There is the point in the fence where you know you've exited the lot. There is the point in the cleaning of the barn when my Horse Head knows I got rid of too much. He says, I might be a Horse Head but I still appreciated the chickens! I still nod out of the broken window barred teeth white enough to brighten the day. In an unexpected twist My Horse Head will let this body go after years atop it, my useless racing and blur. My Horse Head will die without me and my father will shine up the skull for the flowerbed. I will die without my Horse Head. Just a gap in the clutter. And in case I forget after the years wither my vines, I've written it down right here: "Ask not what your Horse Head did for you, etc."
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TYLER GOBBLE is chapbook editor for Magic Helicopter Press and host of the Everything Is Bigger reading series at Malvern Books in Austin, TX. He has plopped out four chapbooks, most recently 48 Pornos (Safety Third Enterprises, 2013), with another coming from Radioactive Moat Press soon, and his first full-length will be out from Coconut Books in the fall of 2014. He likes disc golf, tank tops, and bacon, and yes, in that order. More at www.tylergobble.com.

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