By Joan Colby
At one point in the gallop
All four feet are off the ground
And the horse is for the moment
Airborne the way an angel
Might be in the age before the fall,
Before the clods of earth spattered
The living and unborn with flying dirt.
The soul of the unbaptized darkened
Until the blessing of water flushed
Its hereditary taint. What saint
Invented this confusion
Erroneous as the early artists
Who drew the horse spread-eagled
In full stride until a camera
Freeze-framed the exactitude of motion,
Until disbelief freed the red bawl
Of a child from the rigor of faith,
The drumbeat of hooves over the track
That circles and circles and circles
To an arbitrary endpoint
An electronic wire where just a thrust
Is the difference between celebrating
Beneath an arch of roses
Or head-down plodding off to a bed of straw.
Copyright Colby 2013
Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, Gargoyle, Pinyon, Little Patuxent Review, Spillway, Midwestern Gothic and others. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She has published 20 books including Selected Poems” from FutureCycle Press which received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize and “Ribcage” from Glass Lyre Press which has been awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize. Three of her poems have been featured on Verse Daily and another is among the winners of the 2016 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. Her newest books are “Carnival” from FutureCycle Press and “The Seven Heavenly Virtues” from Kelsay Books. Her next book “Her Heartsongs’ will be published by Presa Press in 2018. Colby is a senior editor of FutureCycle Press and an associate editor of Good Works Review. Website: www.joancolby.com. Facebook: Joan Colby. Twitter: poetjm.
All work by Joan Colby
