Dear H.

I had had nothing in my life to do
with the horse that, despite the painful lack
of any wide-open pasture to stray
the black and tan patches of her hide

nonetheless stood beneath the quiet chalk-
board of night on which only the clipped nail
of the moon hung. Beside the kitchen window,
hours of a vague sadness fell to the graveside

As I watched with holy astonishment
her graze over flowerbed stalks that,
in the half-burnt drag of my nightly stupor,

glowed like a mixed bag of potions to mask
the injustice of my life, its blank terms
of possibility for which, from the other side

the exile speaks with such joy, such sadness.