Poet Wrestling with Atonement
So I turn you into a horse but you are jealous of that horse.
& so you’ve chosen to die.
Or rather: the horse will not
not be skinned. There. {There.} Feel better. Next year
I’ll teach you to swim & you’ll carry us north
for wintertime.
So I turn you into
a horse, a water horse, with sealskin & steely
fins that never tire, but still you are jealous
of some distant & parched mire
wanting to bury me
in a rusted flask.
Wanting all my bare skin
skunned in wineflesh.
As proof
of first horse-&-human debt,
unborn seed
far away from smokeless winter
chimney & singed
evergreen
kickedstraight
to the curb.
& even if we’d return
{minutes} before the world’s end, still
I’d turn you into a horse who would die
dying for the music.
Underneath ivory
tabernacle, under holy child.
& still you lament the tusk
warped into wings,
the horns hammered for organ keys.
& now you’re a songless thing tearing through
the middle of this horse, who(m) if I don’t finish,
will be left swimming
in loose folds of ocean
for eternity
—so I turn you into a horse
& you say the ice is not a place for sacrifice.
So I turn you into {a horse} & you say: turn me
into a drop of rain & I swear by the skun
of our sins you& I
will never see land again.