A Friend Shows Me James Galvin’s “Two Sketches of Horses”
Her fingers drag and splay to hold them still. Days before, her horse had died. Gruesome, she said,
his femur broke jagged through muscle and blood, what comfort her hands on him now gone;
his body chained and hoisted up, legs dangling like roots or wood chimes. From her window,
drag marks, white hair she will collect for birds; under one of her nails, dirt— she has turned
the page to yearlings, a girl in wildflowers; before her, ghost horses running like geoglyphs, one lifting off.
Rule of Jaw
Everyone hated Chloe, the terrier we bought to teach you how to love—forget her messes, the crate door she banged open and shut, her manic pull at the leash, her wants and
flaws we took as our own as we did with you who didn’t yet speak, your blunt pointer a question, an answer, command, until five years in Chloe lunged, teeth-bared at your small hand—
I lied on the release forms for someone to take her on trust as we had, from a breeder who cross-bred birds where
a peacock screamed on the lawn and our soon-to-be dog bit the edging that fenced her in— so eager we failed to see her spunk as runt anger the small cannot live without, but you learned
so when the hamster died, your hand blew out the back-door glass and now our cat is dying from old age or a growth the x-ray can’t detect,
science being less exact than fear or wonder—his back knobbed as a rosary, oh pet him, you who chose a hermit as your patron saint, come to me, my prayer a lonely abacus—my dog, I can still hear her howl.
Another Way to Land
Falling, I have been
falling lately, roots
leaf-covered, throw rugs knocking me
down, the ground
hard and familiar to my feet, now
familiar to my face; pain
purple as sun rise and set, healing
blank as a full moon, fractals
hidden. Once I trusted gravity
to hold me upright, running
into marriage, the hard measure
children take of who you are.
Last week, I held out my arm
to a Harris hawk, wings wide as grace
landing to feed. Before falling,
earth was a place
to step on. Now it has bled into me
branch and feather
flower where death will carry me.
Jane C. Miller’s poetry has appeared in Kestrel, Apple Valley Review, and Summerset Review, among others. A two-time recipient of a DDOA fellowship, Miller is co-author with three other Delaware poets of the collection, Walking the Sunken Boards (Pond Road Press, 2019), and an editor of the online poetry journal, Quartet (www.quartetjournal.com).