Horse

Face the animal, you say

No more words now: demonstration

Almost white against red sand

like this

Hello skull, old tool

(Georgia on my mind)

No more eyes, no more eyelids

jaw dropped

Ear bones one night

clattered in the waking cold

Mice could hear elaborate chatter

almost cheerful

Small hammer, tiny anvil

miniature stirrup

Who was warmed by your fur?

Did they wear or eat it?

Once a windborne wonder

now tick-tock picked clean

NOTE: This poem was sparked by Jean Follain’s “Face the Animal”, translated from the French by Heather McHugh.

Passport

for W. S.

A line, entering watermind

Your unguarded look looking at me

Your unguarded arms arming around me

My lost self, losing itself—

losing all fear of losing

A swift reed, birch, or willow—

riverside, quick to dance, shape shifting

Citizen of imagination

Erogenuity

Earthly body, celestial body.

Body of water, body of work.

Body politic, body of argument.

Receptive body seeking body,

body dweller. We meet

through bodies. Our selves

infinitely stranger

and stronger

than bodies.

___________

Moira Walsh makes her home in southern Germany and translates for a living. In 2021, she was the inaugural Anne-Marie Oomen Fellow at Poetry Forge, a Thomas Lux Scholar at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and a finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Moira has no university degree.