not brave, but unfearful,
you who knew the difference
between haunch and flank,
stifle and gaskin,
the you of sketches
still hanging in your mother’s bathroom,
undusted and aching.
There was a you of chamomilla eyes and untilled heart,
bay and sorrel,
now only of dwindling embers,
attenuated memory.
You are a collet turned inwards.
You are a blind horse before the storm.
You see the incus cloud billow before the horses hear it.
You are leading the purblind and unshod through exhaling pasture.
They are neighing,
draftbiting burnished coat,
the sky thickening,
the dark widening.
They are shying at thunderclap.
Nimbused in memory,
nimbused with patience,
you are almost through paddock, almost safe in stable.
They are frightened in ways you cannot afford.
You are calm. You are beautiful.
I want you to read your hagiographies.
I want you to know that Sepharial was right.
I want you to laugh at the bagpipes playing at your wake,
I want the other men who love you to stop loving you,
I want you to know that regret is stronger than gratitude,
that grief is just the fear that this is forever,
I want you to know this is where I’ll leave you,
you who are fearless,
you who are forever bringing in
the blind horses before the storm.
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