Bones of Bucephalus

 
 

“Of all the sights a horse-rending plant offers to the world, a horse is not one"

                                                                                                                                                -Plutarch 

 there on the lip,

                                                of the cthonian ocean of long bones

how could I have known what a horse was

      before it ever rode forth in chopped waves,

                it stepped   it charged

         —before it ever foaled in a barn—

     placental wetness with the mud of its birth

                          marred a mare

                                                     a body endures so much

                                               and rots like a neigh in a field

                                                        the earth will have us each

                                                       wave gallops flankwide inland,

                                                       a shadow horse of Belowland

                                                       attributing its bones to the coast.

      I try to see the past in you,  

Stoneportal, broken coffin bone, admit me

before you were snapbacked and scalded bald

Were you the tumorous steed of a freak?

   The foaming mouth of a draft horse? 

                   Coachcarry?

Are you the legs of a veteran?

   Are you a war hero?                       Is a wave a herd?

                                                                         What brief identity the flesh provides,

                                                                                     what scant shelter is a hide!   

                                                                             when the world flips over and uncovers us

 

Object

Horse Bones

Body of Water

Dead Horse Bay

About the Artist

Joe Fritsch studied poetry at Brooklyn College. Currently, he is the Program Assistant at Poets House, in NYC. His work has appeared online at Indigestmag.com, and in publications by Uphook Press. He lives in Brooklyn.