Horse Apocalypse

Hrhm Shp, colt-culling,

Is what hoof lore calls it—

The choke-chain sound a roan coined

To describe the things he saw

Before the sniff weevils crept

Up his nostrils and chewed

His eyes at the hue-sweet root.

                      •

Mother mares scare foals

From folly-trots and foxglove

By telling them fury tales

Of muck stirrup-deep and shells

Shoveling Passchendaele

Onto Passchendaele,

The foal fallen with the boy.

                      •

One memory, common

To all breeds, spurs night mares

Sparking down the mute streets

Of their sleep, gas-blind

Witnesses scraping Krupp

Guns over the cobblestones,

Winged sparks breeding in the hay.

                      •

Having watched us box and ditch

Our dead, they thought our dead

Ate termite-runnels

In the black bark of the land

And pulled all horsefolk down

To join whatever dark cavalry

Thundered underground.

                      •

The burlap gas mask cupped

And strapped to the wet snout

Could be mistaken, when

The gas gong sounded

And the men grew fly-heads,

For a feed sack chock-

Full of red ants.