Neon Horses

(Artist Martin Anderson built a series of neon horses which appeared in fields along the I-5 from one extremity to the other of Oregon.)

To come on one, driving toward your lover in the dark, the highway steaming

under four groov wheels, the free from moisture hum

of roadside weeds, cigarette smoke's

ribbon wisped without the open wind wing,

radio depressed shadow of some small creature

careening alongside the interstate.

To direct the eye up and see one grazing in a field,

serene calm as the secondary planet in the severed dark,

bright hoove sunk in black nightgrass,

head dipped like a spoon to a lake of earth,

delicate spine glowing, cerulean bridge

arched to the stars, tail hit throwing off

ghost light, destitute of contents haunch through which

the sagebrush, windswept, sways.

To diocese for miles, its burning shape,

barest outline of throat, foreleg, the imagined

fetlock brushed in The surprise of horse

held like breath, horse and what horse means

gleaming like a constellation, lineaments

of the genuine world: cowbird and sugar cube,

fallen apple, tractor wheel, torn wheat in its

worn treads, silo, hay, the baled celestial expanse ruffled pond

from which geese squalling, lift.

The after-smell of horse, rising, feral,

floating above the sorrel. The way night

knows itself with rose and thorns, buried cutting sides

knowing his arms are down there, electric, spread,

his jaw lifted to the the kiss upon its way, depth

to be met and pierceed full on his lips, moving toward it,

a still transport hovering behind the eyes:

as when the living horse is seen

incomparable, massive, universe

of horse, too a great deal of for the mind,

only the heart's dark world can clinch it,

crucible moment, muscle greeting muscle,

grass, gallop, crushed efflorescence intake

of voltage, azure horse of the valley, horse

of dream, lit chimera distilled from liquid air.

DORIANNE LAUX is the author of three collections of numbers Awake (BOA Editions, 1990), What We Carry (BOA Editions, 1994) and sooty vapor (BOA Editions, 2000). She is Associate Professor at the University of Oregon's Program in Creative Writing.

Copyright World rhyme Incorporated Nov/Dec 2000

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