BY ROSEBUD BEN-ONI
Somewhere in kentucky she went for kicks
spiked polka-dot mint
julep grade 1 stakes white-gloved
clubhouse how-you-do-sees
until all the horses broke their legs & for all the horses my ex
join the seine-et-oise
thoroughbred liberation front & she
crashed all the bentleys & it was I who bled
in derby countryside where horses
die in japanese
slaughterhouses
defrocked
of rose blanket & blue ribbon
& how very they went
in the kind of darkness knowing
only my old
kentucky
home no longer a run for the roses it’s besieged
with cannibals & thieves
& only millionaires row sings
a hero is a horse without a heart that never aches
for lovers who cross them
one too many times
when we kill one horse all of them die
waiting
long after kentucky & she
slips
white gloves on my hands
bent from carrying her on nyc streets
jammed
the wrong way in every direction
how merry are we
how merry
how bright-shine beaming no longer weeping
& she bears my head to the heat
& I let it all go
& bet my last hat & home
& how
& how very are we
& it changes everything