Last night I dreamt a live horse fell to pieces,
slowly, from my arms to the dusty ground.
It was all clean breaks, a puzzle of marrow
and red, with a strain of the neck toward sky.
And he had the steam-white blaze of the stallion
I once wished for on pink candles and smoke.
But he was not mine. And soon I woke, worried
my dog was ill—connecting dane to horse
as usual. Yet he was, and your car broke down
on the way home from my place, that same night.
In another dream I might have grappled
with stirrups, reins and fled, moved like lightning
from vet to mechanic. Those broken haunches
mended like the finest liquid bronze.
St. Fiacre (Retablos)
I
Patron saint for gardens cab drivers tile
and box makers Fiber optic flashes
of life after six seventy AD
Like comets just now burning out maybe
an inch or light year off Orion’s belt
With the touch of spade to soil
Toppling bushes mighty trees digging trenches
You are a meteor leaving craters to smoke
Like my mother once moist gloves in the garden
II
Morning glory impatiens four o’clocks
When younger my favorite flowers
like the dresses I even in school had to wear
were showy and dodge balls are drawn to lace
pink hearts and white tights like snails to beer
The front yard was my Sunday school
Apse the bed growing the strongest mint
Your ability to heal better than or imbuing
the aloe planted at the foot of my steps
III
That plant will not grow its ring as I’d hoped
around the umbrella tree but instead
climbs up drain pipes walks the steps.
When I look I can see you light streak
bundled among deeper purple leaves
And now outside the hands of God I planted
are cupped to catch the rain drops gild the veins
feed the parched galaxy of summertime roots
fingertips poised as though about to dig recreate