Santa Fe Poetry Broadside
Issue #17, September, 2000 : -- -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 12
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Joan Logghe
photograph: horse's face After Horses

                 

After Horses, Horses

Blanco my horse with arrows aimed down for legs,
with the dull face that in age takes an ascetic cast, my horse
with a starry chin and a chewing heart, with a gourmand’s mouth
who could eat for breakfast the Great Plains, with a ladder back,
his back a herd of sheep.

My horse with a dumb back swayed by his twenty years.
My horse with a fetlock of white violins.
With nostrils inhaling fresh bells of air,
with a drink of water in his teeth, with a slurp
as deep and long as Civil War. My horse

with a thirst for song and a water trough of ice.
My horse aging underneath my legs. With as many years
to live as he gets, his calavera face underneath my hands.
My horse, a walking skeleton and a running harp.
With an Eohippus in his genes and a Muybridge phototgraph.

My horse with no consternation about his soul. With a trot
of rocking horse on springs. My horse to escort me to death.
With a ride into my past and a childhood eye. My horse
who moves me back and forth in time, with a canter
I located under my fear. With an easy lope

that’s new like my back teeth. With a canter that astounds
and a gallop into owls. My barranca horse, my badlands
steed that the neighbors love to ride, with his yellow teeth,
his teeth of grain, sweet feed, his floated teeth of oats.
My alfalfa eating horse with an Appaloosa rump

and a quarter horse mind. With an onion colored rump
and a fish bone stare. With his sweat after running and gentle hoof.
With his hooves under water at Santa Cruz. With his smell
of elk and horse shit perfectly. With his miles.
My horse with his many miles and his canyon floors.

His arroyo mane and his fly switch tail. His sleeping
on his feet and his standing still. My horse when he rolls
after saddle his pig roll, dirt roll, dust storm end of day.
My horse with a back hoe poised to dig his grave.
Apple horse, leather horse, water steed, holding equine court.

My horse who keeps his word with his honest neigh.
Puff into his nostrils where he exhales horse.

Copyright © 2000 Joan Logghe.

About the poet.

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Issue #17, September, 2000 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.