Dreaming Orion

He loved the night sky over Loraine, accent
on both syllables—low rain—loved the taste
of the name in his mouth, the sound of his town-
folk talking. He loved lying flat on his back
that summer, dusk pulsing with crickets, dreaming
the Great Hunter. He knew the story, the bright
stars, Betelgeuse his favorite—shoulder of the giant
he dreamed roping, star of a rodeo that glittered
like Rex Allen’s spangled shirt under banked lights,
his unleashed smile. The boy carried that brightness
home from San Antonio, his daddy driving past
midnight, father and son singing cowboy songs
into the roaring hush. Momma had salmon croquettes
warming for them in the oven, he could taste them
in the sound of salmon with an ell—the mouth-
watering glide of his tongue. He could hear mallets
clicking in the backyard, ice-cream freezers turning
beneath the chinaberries like slow tires on gravel.
He murmured to himself drifting off, his favorite colors,
the names he had given them—Dragon Fruit for the sun
just over the horizon, Cornsilk for the light that came
after. Others for the day ahead. Mesquite Lace Green.
Sandstone Shade. Cerulean. A color for each room
of the house he imagined for himself, and visible
from his pillow, a photograph of Rex Allen, smiling.