The Pioneer Saloon

The Pioneer Saloon 

At night, the animals, they come alive.
The trout writhe off the mounting boards. 
The elk and deer swing their stiff necks.
The spotted owl spreads his wings.
The buffalo blinks under his tween bangs. 

Dead, they speak the same language now. 
The owl tells of what it felt like to soar 
Over the snow and under the moon, 
Knowing the whole world was shivering
At the sound of his piercing cry.
A captive audience, they hang on his every word.
Even the ponderous moose gets to fly
Vicariously through the owl’s story.

Then one of the trout describes the joy
Of evenings spent sipping bugs off the surface,
The current so gentle it took only a flicker 
Of the tail to stay in the same place,
And just like that the moose is in the river
He used to stand in, water streaming from his jaw.

Now it’s the moose’s turn to tell a story. 
He talks of a legendary battle in a meadow,
Crack of bone on bone echoing off the mountain.
The racks became interlocked and they died
Like that, first one, then, a day later, the other.

Towards dawn, the buffalo talks softly —
They have to strain to hear — of the genocide
That wiped out her kind, and even the badger
With his resting bitch face finds himself
Deeply moved, his glass eyes misty with sympathy.

At first light they grow quiet, assuming the poses
They were mounted in. Not precisely,
But close enough that no one would notice,
Though the kid who opens swears some days
The moose used to be looking the other way.