Honest in Which Not Gently

Does it matter how festive it was, the setting out for far country,

the horses, their chestnut flanks, their eyes the color of black basil,

which is purple, really? Now just skulls where a face used to be,

shameless, as in bereft of shame finally, each catching the snow

gently but differently, the snow, and the wind scattering it, as if



unapparent meant nonexistent. They say language has its own sorrow,

but no word for it: does this crying out maybe come close, though,

can we say it does, to have stared into the dark and said aloud, even

if quietly, Who’s there? Anyone around? Panicking too late, as is

the way with panic, the killer stumbles through woods and a snowfall



that feels like ritual and a release from ritual, so that it also feels –

at first, anyway – like being lost, but free. Beneath the pines, the two

horses stood exactly where he’d left them untethered hours ago. Snow

dusted their fine bodies. Nightmare. Nightmare Lifting. Their names

swim up to him. I remember, now. Yes. Now it’s all coming back.