I.

I was not a real horse and it was not
a real field—there were stumps all over
where they had sawed off the observation
towers after the war games were over
and it was time to review
the execution of abstract strategies
as they had galloped through actual space.
A dark red saddle also missing.   

The accusation hung heavy
in the aromatic morning—one had
to believe it would eventually drop.
 

II.

If you find yourself hungry
and step away to make toast

or whatever it is that sustains you
and return to discover I’ve gone,

don’t worry.  I will have left you
something else for your amusement:

like a bag of plastic fruit that children
buy and sell to each other.
 

III.

In July I could not stop thinking
of the gorgeous pale green box
with the interior divided
as though it were waiting patiently
for a complicated illness
and the accompanying chorus line
of pills, but I was healthy as anything,  

shining coat and an expression
of near-human alarm.
 

IV.

Everyone loved the lieutenant.
The future had already awarded him
all possible medals, so that when
he dressed for elegant functions
every lamp grew involved
in his chest, as we all were.   

His son, a rabid birdwatcher,
was equally as pretty and his accident
depressed us hugely.  That was the week
the newsletter shut itself down.
 

V.

I’m not crying.  It’s just the photograph
of milkweed getting in my eyes,
an allergic reaction, but I will not
take the photo down, because it hails
from a nobler time, when cryptobotanists
plotted to legislate the earth.
 

VI.

In an emergency-like situation,
such as we have just survived,
the light takes on an air
of reduced wattage, as if

the first sacrifice might loosen
all the rest.  Meanwhile I will
always closely guard the band of men
within me—when it goes quiet
they nap in my mane.
 

VII.

The leaflet said Remember
Mikey Premo.  I tried, but
that was when the dancing girls
invaded my brain, forcing
the dead man to order cocktails
for his generously compensated date.

If there is a speck of dignity on this planet
they did not plant it deep within me.
 

VIII.

The lieutenant told me that I am
a good horse and then he unscrewed
my belly to inspect my recent past.   

The sound my teeth make when
I’m sleeping is like an electric harmonica
that someone buried but forgot to unplug.
 

IX.

For the funeral they tinted my coat
a somber shade of green
and I constantly checked my pace
against the dragging metronome.

The sun beat down on my aluminum
flanks which were designed to keep
the homemade refreshments warm.   
 

X.

At the debriefing the lieutenant said
that loss was as inevitable as sand.
He said it with so little conviction
that the men began to slowly deflate:
first an arm, then a torso, until
the room was nothing but folding chairs,
wrinkled shirts and me,  

hitched to the whiteboard,
minutes printing from my mouth.

This morning you woke up on the aristocratic side
while I woke only slightly. And: let the world look  

down upon its coterie of bats, I mean that complicated
engine it likes to wear out.  Are those your eyes or  

newly-minted nickels?  How fine you are to stand on. 
I hardly need a telescope. There are lines of discernment  

like spokes and all around a pleasant whirring. Over there,
in Sector 4, a handsome tableau vivant. I am most pleased  

when segmented.  And you may have this piece and I may
keep that; the demarcating lines remain intact. Suppose a bird  

tore through our homeland: I would not jump to catch it, for
fear of injuring your ribs, and you, distracted by the ocean's  

hapless sloshing, would not see it until later, when, both
prone and breathing fondly, I reenact it near your face.

Because my head is a magnet for bullets
I am spending the day indoors.  First 

I admired the topiary for several hours
and when my eyes began to ache I rang 

for lunch.  Lunch arrived with injunctions.
I considered my feet.  I did not consider 

my altitude.  Because I stuffed myself
into the reliquary, I am finding movement 

difficult.  Luckily, I would not dream
of dancing in this outfit.  You must be 

a foreign exchange student.  Allow me
to make an observation: We live beneath 

a frugal moon, and only in her bad light
do our women seem consumptive. 

Though what do I know.  I am, moreover,
a senatorial moment, and if you don't 

forget me, I may do it myself.  You could
conceivably think I've never known love, 

but I suspect that in the war years, when nurses
bandaged my wounds with repetitive flair,  

there existed between us if not affection,
at least a sense that the subject could arise.