Rosebud Ben-Oni

A Horse Dies Once That Is a Lie

Somewhere in kentucky she went for kicks
spiked polka-dot mint
julep grade 1 stakes white-gloved
clubhouse how-you-do-sees

until all the horses broke their legs & for all the horses my ex

joined the seine-et-oise
thoroughbred liberation front & she

crashed all the bentleys & it was I who bled

in derby countryside where horses
die in japanese
slaughterhouses
defrocked
of rose blanket & blue ribbon

& how very they went
in the kind of darkness knowing
only my old
kentucky

home no longer a run for the roses it’s besieged
with cannibals & thieves
& only millionaires row sings

a hero is a horse without a heart that never aches

for lovers who cross them
one too many times

when we kill one horse all of them die
waiting
long after kentucky & she


slips
white gloves on my hands
bent from carrying her on nyc streets
jammed
the wrong way in every direction

how merry are we

how merry

how bright-shine beaming no longer weeping
& she bears my head to the heat
& I let it all go
& bet my last hat & home
& how
& how very are we
& it changes everything