Into the Weather

I stand by a tree, watch Palace play. The stage is too big: bare black, just boards and empty lights and Will Oldham is a white t-shirt and jeans. He’s skinny, slowly entrancing and I can’t move away from the tree in this heat. I hear Hope to remember the face of the singer or the way people lie down on the lawn as if music is sun. That same man is driving a car through hoops of flame. I ride horses like an electric fence that hums teeth and gums. I remember my grandfather being kicked purple by a horse. There is no music. I run away. There is a photograph and it is a shipyard made of wood and rust. It doesn’t look like a palace. It feels the way the north side of town smells: cement, paper, dirt. I am the only one who hears, and the horses are soft to teenage ears, just a drip of Agnes. I conjure the voice of a singer who sings so well he doesn’t sing at all. I am no longer in Michigan, all smog-lungs. I do not hear his voice anymore over the language and the din of tones. Hear my own voice. I am standing by a tree. I cannot speak well. The palace stage is set anew by a band I don’t see, because we are walking through the crowd trying to find a hill to sit and dream music and be silent horses of death.