Ivan Dobnik - Vilenica

412 · Sarah Clancy
Horse Latitude
What do you mean when you affix
those phrases to the flare of a nostril,
or the grease-warm feel of neck muscles
hidden under a rough knotted mane?
Why spell out this anatomy, not your own?
It’s there, one way or another, and unlike
some expectant lover it doesn’t pace
and wait for you to name it.
Tell me what can ‘fetlock’ signify
when the joint’s own leg, own heart
own foot don’t know the term?
The sound, low and secret,
a mare makes to her foal
holds no gospel, no prophesy
however hard you try
and even as you describe it
resonating in your blood
your bones
your womb,
laden though it is it doesn’t speak for you.
You search out the music in hoof on grass,
the scratch of teeth on another’s back,
and I say even if the whiskered lip
responds in kind
it’s on instinct, not affection not connection
and that’s
fine.
Metaphor for nothing,
it doesn’t share your melancholy
it’s just horse, and it doesn’t wonder
how we see it.