Who made the banjo sad & wrong?

Who made the luckless girl & hell bound boy?

Who made the ballad? The one, I mean,

where lovers gallop down mountain brush as though in love-

where hooves break ground to blood earth scent.

Who gave the boy swift words to woo the girl from home,

& the girl too pretty to leave alone? He locks one arm

beneath her breasts as they ride on-maybe her apron comes

undone & falls to a ditch of black-eyed susans. Maybe

she dreams the clouds are so much flour spilt on heaven's table.

I've run the dark county of the heart this music comes from-but

I don't know where to hammer-on or to drop a thumb to the

haunted string that sets the story straight: All night Willie's dug

on Polly's grave with a silver spade & every creek they cross

makes one last splash. Though flocks of swallows loom-the one

hung in cedar now will score the girl's last thrill. Tell

me, why do I love this sawmill-tuned melancholy song

& thud of knuckles darkening the banjo face?

Tell me how to erase the ancient, violent beauty

in the devil of not loving what we love.