In hurricane season,
feign patience.
Shadless sun,
two-hour rains.

Escape to Joyuda,
drive by a slender brown horse
grazing under palm fronds
a few feet from the road,

tied to nothing.
On the shoulder, iguana squads
guard the grass. Locals load tables
with papayas and wireless plans.

Everywhere, our rented Jeep
smooths the unpaved path
from ripe salt marshes
to white lighthouses,

acrophobic cliffs
to an unblocked horizon.
Four wanderers wiser
to see this, America.

On the return, teens asleep,
find each street lined
by wire fences where dogs
laze, fed in fading sun, and

see the same horse just where it was,
untethered, unaccompanied
at dusk. To say why, if you were here,
would you bother to run away?

Max Heinegg is the author of Good Harbor (2022), Going There (2023), and Keepers of the House (forthcoming 2025) all from Lily Poetry Press. He lives and teaches in Medford, MA, where he is the co-founder and brewmaster of Medford Brewing Company. Connect with him on the web at http://www.maxheinegg.com