Blind Foal

published in The Apiary, Fall 2010

Sweet Jesus, grant me the power to delve
deeper, deeper still: cracking it all up,
unsheathing, splitting everything then leaving it out in the sun, exposed.

Give me some bitterness and irony
like the blind foal born when I was ten,
pushed out slick and steaming,
tearing his mother with urgent hooves–
then shot in mercy a day later.
(The mare stood, her tender parts swollen and stitched,
missing the colt’s nubby mouth nudging her belly.
All that work for what?)

Don’t listen, if at some future date,
I beg for release, pray for numbness. I may say different,
but this is what I really want. Really–

to scream at the difficult moments,
say the awkward things. Let my flustered lovers leave me,
let heartache leave me brave.

To remember and shudder; let some pain drive me into corners
collecting the God almighty ashes and dust, making my own.