James Scannell McCormick Horses
To the Carolinas weak rain brought me, or I the rain. Not that, either; Nor, at Litchfield, the sea, slow wave-mane, surf-hoof, grazing at shore. There, mornings, outside my bedroom door, I'll hear my name From my cousin's lame boy. Little sponge, blue-eyed, I'm Spooked, though neither did any water wholly swallow Us, this time. But I fell dutifully sick—chills—against the sun over yellow Pinehurst. Mostly the weather was bright, hot. Jays as I made More coffee, black. Holly reached and stretched to trees. And my head Wouldn't stop aching. I wouldn't write a word. So not the desmenses and Messuages of Uncle's shake-sided house—new, gray—around Which pines and spent rhododendrons, but a broke Catholic school's damp pasture, With warm-bloods—slick-neck, clammy-pastern. Cropping. They were Patience, purpose. Their belonging. And as I, slack, Already forget them, I watch. What I wasn't: what I want back. |