Mood: Astonished
Drinking: The Usual
It’s a first during Poem-a-Day Poetry Month: 2 for 1. That’s right. One day, two poems.
It’s as rare as a three-legged cat, but it sometimes happens.
Both of these poems kind of go together, anyway, so it’s only fitting to present them that way. They’re both about the same guy and yes, that’s him over there on the right.
Fantasia
You were all wrong for me, yes
but that never stopped a girl
from falling in love. I had a
bad boy complex even at
age 12.
But bad boys don’t love you back
the way you wish they would.
You never forgave me
for tying you down,
for filling your mouth
with cold metal.
And though I tried to
make it up to you with
a warm bed, a good gallop
through pliant green fields,
you wouldn’t let me break you in.
I could never make you gentle.
The Gelding
Side by side, we tracked
chronic circles in the snow
until his knees buckled
and he fell gently to sleep.
The man in blue coveralls
swooped in then with his scalpel
kneeling in the slush
to do his work.
I stood feebly by
clutching the useless
lead line in one mittened hand
trying not to watch.
The cuts came quickly,
with business-like amounts
of blood. Castration as cure
for misbehavior.
When it was over, the vet
tossed the soft pink testes
across the paddock
to his waiting collie.
That’s when I finally broke
and bent to stroke the gelding’s
sedated head, murmuring soft
comfort and betrayal.
-Lo, with a thing for the blue-eyed boys.
LaDonnaWitmer 