A Horse Dies Once That Is a Lie

Somewhere in kentucky she went for kicks

spiked polka-dot mint

julep grade 1 stakes white-gloved

clubhouse how-you-do-sees

until all the horses broke their legs & for all the horses my ex

joined the seine-et-oise

thoroughbred liberation front & she

crashed all the bentleys & it was I who bled

in derby countryside where horses

die in japanese

slaughterhouses

defrocked

of rose blanket & blue ribbon

& how very they went

in the kind of darkness knowing

only my old

kentucky

home no longer a run for the roses it’s besieged

with cannibals & thieves

& only millionaires row sings

a hero is a horse without a heart that never aches

for lovers who cross them

one too many times

when we kill one horse all of them die

waiting

long after kentucky & she

slips

white gloves on my hands

bent from carrying her on nyc streets

jammed

the wrong way in every direction

how merry are we

how merry

how bright-shine beaming no longer weeping

& she bears my head to the heat

& I let it all go

& bet my last hat & home

& how

& how very are we

& it changes everything