headline from a small-town newspaper

I imagine your breath smells —
though I’ve never seen you close

enough to sniff you, or even
wave to you from a window

of a car, piloted by me or another
daylight driver. Though once, long

ago, at summer camp, I saw a horse
wipe its dripping snot on a girl’s

sheer skirt. It was more of a slide
than a swipe, but still. We shrieked.

The girl never returned: she’d been
dismissed for her behavior —

a tale that went unshared
with the bulk of us, left snorting

at the hinted story. So why
does your foray into town

seem funnier than any news
I’ve read today? You’ve emerged before

in various guises — suitor with an accent;
a lost clown in Groucho Marx glasses —

all through the state
of banked hay and confusion

that can mark a rural life. Pity the ripe
bear, grabbing at loaves

of stone-soft bread from the counter
of growled hopes: at the scent

of stale humor, thin mockery
and rank, timid despair. It will go hungry.