Larissa Szporluk
Grapeshot

Once a horse, always a horse.
Once at war, always at war.
Healing? I am healing in the field
by charging forth. Retreat?
Not when the fodder’s slopping
through mud, fizzing and flaring
where I chewed as a filly. Not
when the creeping house of a snail
blows its fuse and bursts—
in childhood, battery meant
“beating on it.” Beating on a thing
to make it work. Truce? I was told
it would pass, whatever it was,
and we’d all sign the dotted line.
Once in the past, always in the past.
When the rye was shoulder-high,
they lit my tail and laughed
while I plowed the freaking acre.
The future ate my bone yard,
yawyawyaw, but viva, I’m on fire—
the ass in the grass is the rage.