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One only receives glimpses of it,
as in looking into a courtyard,
straw blackening in the corners,
there are always the horses
harnessed, immense
waiting for the important
people who never appear
to rush out of the house.
Then the latch clicks
and one is locked inside
picking at weeds grown
between the cobblestones.
Lithe bodies of rodents,
lice move under the hay.
Only occasionally is
the loneliness of
the place acknowledged.
Failure is immense.
Horse
1.
Everything has been scraped
out in advance. The poor eye
has lost its viscous body,
the body tries to tent
a small portion of the scene.
It blows inside out.
The eye, distended,
peers discombobulated
at the flattened world.
Yellow. White. Horse.
2.
The other eye, wider,
would look on this. It is not
poor at all. Pulled so far apart,
an eye, like the eye of a needle,
has come to roost in it.
Cautiously it finds the body,
concatenation, muscle, bone.
Horses trail each other
to the watering trough.
Ragged bunchweed milks.
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My cat sleeps
His hide of fur
Covering flesh
Pressed in a box.
His tongue moves
A telling pink
And his eyes
Behind eyelids
Roam.
It was June only yesterday, and he in deep
Blades of grass ran with a mouse in his jaw
Bloody for cover.
I did not know
How loneliness
Would arrive
Like a singed
Light bulb
Hanging over
A burned out stove.
I am happier here now.
The wind and the rain.
Loveable the back
Of my cat's
Eating head.
Rupture
It is almost as dead
as you think you want it
overlooking this winter park
with the rain soaked litter.
When you aren't watching,
gulls, so big and hungry,
they appear like vultures, like turkeys,
land and push their streaked
beaks into the matted grass.
You cannot shake their
presence beyond the glass.
Low droopy clouds
open, and a golden eye
leaks large tears.
Daily Bread
Mantling with our hands
In clean square
Movements, as on a precipice
Over an inland plain
En route to Valencia,
We squeezed out
Lemons and limes
Lumps
Of honey
From the mounting dark.
© Jeanne Heuving
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