At the end of his tiring journey

through New Jersey traffic

to our modest homestead in Borough Park,

my father mounted the heavy-footed

club chair with its sticky green weave

and closed his eyes to Copeland’s Billy the Kid.

While exhaustion slid into reverie

I climbed behind him, my legs

a horseshoe he braced with his hands

as the sounds of cars dissolved in the sunset,

our golden carpet rolling into desert.

The symphonic swells carried us

over Western canyons, through the ravines

and mountains to Cowboys thrashing

the air on great steeds under skies

that called us from the rooftops

and stone facades where

I rode his weary shoulders

until my mother’s lasso

uncoiled from the kitchen,

tightened on our hunger

and roped us both in.

Mindy Kronenberg is a Long Island poet, professor, critic, and editor of Oberon poetry magazine. She is on the board of Inspiration Plus, a sustainable arts & science initiative, and is a trustee and docent for the Miller Place-Mt. Sinai Historic Society.