ManicDDaily

Chilmark Hay, Thomas Hart Benton

Colonel

Perhaps, because she never saw the name spelled out,
or because she’d reached the age
when all her parents did seemed inane,
their leadership monumentally ignorant,
she always thought it typical,
if bizarre,
that they had named a favorite horse
after corn.

But when he really did get the colic
from too much cold water
on too hot a day, his withers
quivering with ribbed agony, shuddering
beneath fly and wheeze and barely lashing tail, and when
her mother, who loved
horses, propped him up
all day and through the night, her old
wives’ wisdom claiming
that a horse could never die
still standing–

And after the tug of halter gave way
to a holster of flank, the sprigged chintz
of her mother’s shoulder soaked
brown, a bandage not of blood but
dandered strain; let the horse lie
down, her brain
screamed; but when he flopped, his legs knobbed
sticks next to that bloat, the marbled pupils of his eyes
fleeing the oblivion of veined whites; her father’s face creased
like the ropes
he untwisted and arranged, a hoist
and tackle, her mother pleading with the horse
to rise, face pelted
pressed to long-lashed lids, muzzle–

The ropes proved handy enough after the end, the burial
of a horse a harsh chore

that she would have none of, not even watch; rather stood
in the maze of field,  pretending to wipe only her hair
from scalding cheeks, heart hurting
like a hard dry kernel
that has been made
to burst.

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I am posting the above draft poem for Magpie Tales hosted by Tess Kincaid, who sets up a pictorial prompt each week and for the Trifecta Writing Challenge.   I am also posting with Real Toads, for Kenia’s challenge about “incomformity” where I am thinking of a meaning of irregular or disagreeing–here the disagreement (misunderstanding) between Colonel and kernel.  Check out the sites, and if you have time, check out my books!  Children’s counting book 1 Mississippi -for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms,  Going on Somewhere, poetry, or  Nose Dive, a very fun novel that is perfect for a pool or beachside escape.