LENNY DELLAROCCA

First Mare to Speak

No one knows how they’ve become so clever, the horses.

Tom thinks they’ve come

to know us, powerfully so,

in secret, feeding on compost.

Why, just last week, he says,

he watched them

in a parade

move the clouds.

It’s was witchery in love

letters to the sky, he says.

It’s not right. Mustangs

galloping through town

in broad daylight.

Put a child out cold.

We should tell our kids

to stay home and quit

naming them.

Did you hear? Now the New York Times has its yellow

teeth in the kitchen.

Reporter said to

get used to tourists

taking video out at

the tree line where

it’s anybody’s guess

why the air smells

like coffee. It’s midnight

hi-jinx, Tom says, but

it’s a sign. Meantime,

the horses

have learned to dance.

Not dressage. Nothing tame.

A kind of storytelling

under the moon

when they think

they’re alone. And notice, they know themselves in water.

Lenny DellaRocca is founding editor and former publisher of South Florida Poetry Journal. He’s the author of four poetry collections, His work has appeared in One, Slipstream, Nimrod, Seattle Rev., POEM, Laurel Rev., Fairy Tale Rev, The Meadow and Hawaii Pacific Rev. Poems forthcoming in Cimarron Rev and North Dakota Quarterly.