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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

USED UP, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I remember the new-dropped colts in the time when I was a boy
Last Line: Into the earth
Subject(s): Animals; Coyotes; Donkeys; Horses; Burros


1.

I remember the new-dropped colts in the time when I was a boy:
The steam of their bodies in the cold morning like a visible soul,
And the crimped hairy ring of warmed grass, first circle of sleep.
Spider-legged, later, they ate sugar from my shaken, scary hand.

2.

In a few more years they were broken: their necks were circled
With a farmer's need: with the dead leather legends and collars
of their kin.
Gelded, the wild years cut out of them, harnessed to the world,
They walk the bright days' black furrows and gilded seasons of use.

3.

Now, dead; swung from the haymow track with block and tackle:
Gut-slit, blood in a tub for pigs, their skin dragged over
Their heads by a team of mules. Circlet of crows:
coyote song:
and bones
Rusting coulee moonlight: lush greenest spring grass where the body
Leaped.
Three acts and death.
The horse
rides
Into the earth.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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