ELEGY FOR EIGHT BELLES
euthanized after running the 134th Kentucky Derby

May’s early evening, the spectator sun romps
all round as it cheers the victor’s
muscles having streaked by the end-line;
_____like a lunatic pours
heat and champagne into the upturned glasses of us.

The winner winding down the scorched
dirt track, delicate hooves a-tremble
the body drips, sleeked in some kind of
_____ejaculate, hardly able
to contain the last two minutes in his pounding mind.

So for a moment the sun beats him silly,
somewhere disappears as we shatter,
erupt in a million shards of grief:
_____a filly on her side batters
air, gallops with two fractured fore ankles, hardly able

to contain the last two furlongs in her mind,
compelling wind to brush her face
as all about wrap the veterinaries who
_____form a bandage laced
with troubled brains and a needle-tip’s quiet finality.

From the corner of my eye your tears
as though you hear those eight bells that toll
one shift’s end, one creature’s instinct
_____quelled in a limp lull
borne from the grounds of a downcast Churchhill Downs

where colt and filly stirred the same earth
heaved chests, made the air magnificent.
That wild stomping, shudder of body
_____sleek, dripping in a sun
that shouts its drunkenness, mad with favour, with praise.
___
___
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