The Severance
When I found you,
so woodenly still,
in that fenced-off ditch
they moved you to,
I could tell by the vein
and vernacular
of your telling eyes,
the sudden alarm
of your antennae ears
and how you froze
when I called your name.
Something was wrong—
you had lost station
within the herd
and there was blood
on the wintering grass.
Stock-still in mud,
you took to the headstall,
then dropped your chin
onto my shoulder—
bone on bone (silly boy).
Heading back, we
trod the lone telepathy trail
till you paused, midstride,
revealing a severed hoof.
It dangled in pure air!
How did I miss it—
how long had you
stood between the dark
and the daylight
in pain and privation?
I steadied,
at once swallowing
the pill of the moment
while chewing a hard-grained
dose of acceptance.
Would I bury you
by nightfall? I began to
ingest the absconding light:
namely you,
the mortal joy of you;
that untiring bond
and boundless space
between your head
and tail, where once
a girl, better matched
to you than I, brought
you on from brokenness
and embedded fear
into the natural rhythm
of ground-worked resurrection.
Dan, buckskin horse
with a clover name, now
lame in a fenced-in world,
let me whisper this—
The vet will keep.
The mortician can go
and dine with the undertaker.
And if your trot turns
out to be kinked,
your canter rolls-in,
pigeon-toed, our worlds
are embalmed. You will never
be cut off from the fold.
