It was winter under
A certain little star:
A first day fable?
A snow white fable.
Pear tree. Prayer.
A snow fairy January.
The waking orchard:
The waking horse.
*
Pegasus is
The source
Of our fountain—end and the beginning:
These two trains.
One train may hide
Another
Dead horse.
*
I do not
Fear
A blessing: instructions
On how to put an old horse down.
It was winter
(A blessing)
And day brought back my night—I am that
I am: a horse
In a baggage room
At Greyhound, praying
Drunk.
*
This is just to say
“Pray.”
This is just to say of heaven
And animals “A dog
Has died.”
I would like to describe the dusk
Of horses travelling
Through the dark. I would like
To describe how to like it—bone and
Silence, the death, by fire,
Of a child in London,
Of London snow,
London rooftop
(The city in which I love the street
With no shop
On the corner, this hour
And what is dead),
What I am:
Fork with two tines
Pushed
Together, two women
In a barn playing
With fire.
*
In view of the fact
It was a glass winter
And I a dim lady playing with fire, what
Do women want:
$2.50? A purple bathing suit? Sex
With strangers or
To sit a summer
Morning
In a small screen-house with old men?
God,
Bless their hearts—a prayer
Before bed (another lullaby
For insomniacs):
“In heaven it
Is always autumn”
Or “On the mountain, Mother
Lets off a little steam.”
*
So what
Do women want?
Power? Breasts?
The Gentleman of Shallot!
No more grapefruit!
So what the hell,
Rage, give into graces.
While you were away: 4 A.M.
While you were away:
The one night stand.
While you were away:
Lawrence.
E pluribus unum, Lawrence.
Lawrence,
Do you love me?
*
I lost my horse,
Lawrence—
I lost my horse,
Horse,
To fairy-tale logic
(“Heaven’s always autumn”)
In a beautiful country: no one here
But us.
In a beautiful country—
No one here but us—
A very hot day
Is our other sister,
Yet horses
At midnight without a moon
Weather
The moon in your breath—
A piece of the storm—
And what isn’t mine:
Good-bye, Horse.
Cold, good-bye.
David Antonio Moody
David Antonio Moody writes out of Tallahassee, FL where he pursues a PhD in poetry at Florida State University. Former poetry editor for Saw Palm and Juked, David is production editor of Cortland Review and Southeast Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sweet, Eleven Eleven, 22 Magazine, Spillway, and Artful Dodge. When not camping, researching Ukranian violinists, or lecturing on Carthusian manuscripts, he spends time in his hometown, eating in Florida oldest diner and watching the local river flow north.
Artwork: “the time traveller” by sugarmints
Website: http://sugarmints.deviantart.com/
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