EXCERPT (one of three poems)

GRAINING THE MARE

Out back of Lillie's barn, the sparse
snow chills our ankles. Inside
the arena we built last
summer, the mare
skitters over ice, wild with her
first taste of spring, ignorant
of the bloody membranes soaking
down her haunches into slush. She has
slipped another foal.

It was less than a thrill
watching the stud do his work:
chains, hobbles, both horses panic-eyed,
handlers turning sheepish, her tail
stiffly arced in defiance.

March sky: empty, gray,
barren as this horse.
Whatever do we expect, falling
for mustaches like shades of lipstick?
"Honest, he's different, this time for sure,"
the chorus we sing in any weather.

Hot grain and bran:
equine Ovaltine.

We trek homeward to the warmth
of a woodstove, where the radio spreads
like Chapstick over the sore places,
soak our fallow hearts in beer,
two empty women warming their hands
on the skins of baked potatoes.