Two Poems

Normal Obsessions with Horses

MEAT I never encounter horses except in dreams and circuses when a horse without rider, a transparent mane, takes my neck between wolf teeth, but quietly, which makes it more frightening. Like milk teeth, the teeth don’t pull away until their purpose finishes, when they become superfluous. I only bit the hand of a man once (but deeply), drew blood enough that he liked it. Still I was too tame for him. At night, the horse forces me to remember the bite of a man, how flesh tastes. ALTER EGO I’m a girl wrapped in damask, a river, a female centaur who doesn’t wait for a lover. I’m an arrow painted in poison and I’m shot straight toward your heart. As a token of our love, I’ll take your shirt soaked in blood. But I won’t give away the tainted shirt by mistake. In fairy tales there aren’t any accidents and I’m already writing the rest of my story. Going over again the end. A REAL MAN Save me from circuses, tamed animals and ring leaders shouting encouragement. Save me from yellow tigers leaping through hoops on fire, elephants climbing onto the backs of each other. Save me from chimps riding ponies, ponies trampling chimps, seals juggling balls and bowling pins, blowing horns for fish, all of those dead fish. Save me from black horses, conquered and blind in circuses. Save me from tamed horses. Untethered In Brooklyn, a man’s hand slips from the ledge of a building giving in to a craving for matter. The same way a cave collapses when the soluble rock dissolves. The hum of a dial tone. The phone pressed to my ear. Most mornings I put it down because the time for begging has passed. Listen— I’m the sound of surf with nothing to smash against.

return to SHAMPOO 37