Leash, and: Horn of Plenty

Leash

Tonight our injured dog, whiteand black with a littleblood dry on his leg

from the surgicalstitching strainsto scent some animal I can't see

burrowing in the dark. Strainsto be free of mewho cannot let him be free, though I want

to lose control of him a moment:to let him be the fullestexpression of himself: merciless,

unthinking. I want to be the bodynot holding him back, as last nightI wanted to see your face

during love-making,though you turned your head away,and it shamed me

to see your shame, to seehow each of us still hidesinside our privacy

from the other, afraidof what we might readin each other's eyes, or how

we might appear there: eacha little animalwith its stomach opened.

Would I have foundanother womanif you'd let me look?

Would you have seenfires half-lit on a hillside,or the fisher's skiff I watched

slip out alone into the bayone morning, its black oarsrowing a silent passenger to shore?

Isn't some part of mestill rowing there with him?Your hands carried the salt

I carry to my mouth: the traceof what still binds you to me,more than desire

or a fear of injury:the sound of your breaththe slow lapping of water.

Horn of Plenty

Would you do what this artist did? The onewho bought fresh goat's blood to pourover the cornucopia he sculpted in protestof the war, its dark mouth large enoughfor a yearling kid to sleep in, its head tuckedbetween its glossy hooves: for in his mindthe animal was clean, the farm a bright,mechanical place where anyone could buyclear bags of meat and blood. But the farmhe found was poor, its owner's healthfailing, and so the artist watchedas the farmer trudged into his muddycopse with a pail to pull two thin animalsinto the barn, struggling to lock his kneesaround the smallest one's neck, its hipsand triangular head twisting in his gripso that he levered his blade clumsilythrough the goat's vertebra, forced to sawdown through the tough neck muscles, the animal's headviolently shaking no, no, no until the headpulled free and was thrown upon the ground.Then the man knelt down and punched his knifethrough the belly to pull out viscera, freshand hot, the dark blood pumping into the pailas the other goat backed against the far wall, screaming—

Would you have chosen to stop?Or would you have continued, knowingyou wanted the blood because of the horn: symbolboth of plenty and of suffering, because it was a goatwho nursed the god who snapped this horn offonce in play? And blessed it, later, in order to beforgiven. That the horn recalled the grainof the once-fertile nation your country has invaded:its fields long ago depleted by war and drought.The goat is ancient, milky-eyed.She's half-blind, though she can smellwhat's happened to her companion:the whole barn is thick with the death that will now be hers. Would you keep going?Does the first animal's suffering only make senseif you complete your art, finish the sculpture in a waythe war will never be finished, the great hornclotted with blood and displayedin the foyer of the museum that commissioned it?The show will be titled after a line from The Iliad:"Freighted with Dark Pains," a description of the arrowshot by one nation's soldier into the heart of another.The curators chose the title for the beautyof that line; perhaps for its suggestionthat the body giving and the body receiving painwere both equally blameless: only the arrowdelivers sorrow, only the arrow achesas it rips through skin and muscle, into the tenderflank of the animal you are even now...