In Star-speckled Wyoming

Joey Lew

Quarter and draft-horses,
barrel-racing and rainier-trained,
cattle horses and warmbloods;
Bays, Palominos, Appaloosas,
their spots visible between
raindrops. Mountains turtle-
shelled with shrubbery.
Patchy saplings growing
from burn scars like a teenage
beard. White trucks bear-
watching with giant lenses,
crouching tourists, hidden
cows interwoven between trees
cluster grazing. Holstered
bear spray and traffic-cone-
bison, hooves halting tires.
Breath that sucks into you,
dry and catching, so that you can
exhale in surprise.

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Joey Lew
Joey Lew holds an MFA in poetry from UNCG and an MD from UCSF and is currently a surgical resident at Duke. She placed first in the 2020 William Carlos Williams National Poetry Competition and the 2022 Lough Mask Poetry Competition, was shortlisted at the 2023 Wolverhampton Literary Festival Poetry Competition and was nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize. Her work can be seen in a number of literary magazines and medical journals including most recently The MacGuffin, The San Antonio Review, and the American Journal of Surgery. She is the author of one book: Insensible Losses (Nymeria Publishing 2024).