—William Thacker, outside Clarkston, Utah, 1865
like grain poured from a sacklike the whole cloudbank
glooming the sleigh's tracks all afternoon
finally ripped wide on a pine
and come down hissing my nerves
sunk to dread hollered and wailed
which jolted the oxen and the snow
started to scream steadily
came on like waves
reforming over me white
on white on breaking white
ducked my head below the blanket heap
out of the bluster eyes and ears
no good to me stowed the goad
no force of mine lashed here or there
could do a thing but turn us surely
heavenward gripped the dash
and let the oxen go imagined them
my hands emboldened
walking Rachel's gingham folds at home
as she paused between loaves Christmas Eve
in the new house the neighbor's grist
at the mill in town wages
waiting in his coffers our own crop
gone to hoppers this storm one more attempt
to smother us I couldn't see a thing
but Rachel doling out the last wheat
in cakes that fit our children's palms
hid my head and let my oxen appendages
steer us all
in the damp darkness under the runners'
constant shush I listened hard coaxed
my heart to slow reined my lungs
until my body ceased
fretting and the wind drowned itself
and in the sleigh's lurch and sway
wood and metal groans
led up the tongue to the rubbing yoke
and the creak of each bow
shown clear necks and spines
meat shifting through the shoulders
huffs and draws of winter air
toward home's distant bellow
we lumbered a pair of fists
a blind faith an undertow
