A Horse is Only a Horse in the Dark
How lovely, how doomed,
how we move
against the underworld’s furniture.
I talk matches in my sleeplessness.
I forgot what it is to be alarm—
my dark declivities and this
a barking to the North.
A fox for a woman
is the whole point, is
pleasure divined
from a mirror, desire
from suffering
how a red animal starves in a live trap,
will eat her own paws.
A trick of light—
the rope is not violent,
it is my willingness
to succumb
my wild for you—
Jill Mceldowney is the author of the chapbook Airs Above Ground (Finishing Line Press) as well as Kisses Over Babylon (dancing girl press). She is a co-founder and editor of Madhouse Press. She is also a recent National Poetry Series finalist. Her previously published work can be found in journals such as Muzzle, Prairie Schooner, Fugue, Whiskey Island, and other notable publications.