Palm, and: Miniature Horses in Florida

Palm

Illustrating the wind, in photos.The last hedonists leaving a beachstripped by a force majeure.Otherwise their contrappostoshad zero to teach or preach.They took the measure

of the arc between Palm Sundayand Ash Wednesday, whensmeared between our brows,the phoenix and the axis mundiseemed to fold into one,rise, and take their bows.

Both the shave and the surgeryin one swipe: the trunklike a dog's leg unbandaged wherethe saw razzed with a fury;the man in the bucket, almost sunk;and the cherry picker on a tear.

It was lurching this way and that.I was just a window-gleamfrom afar. Shouting directives,a man knelt in a hard hatamong fronds. In such a dreamrefreshment arrives, the patient lives . . .

Miniature Horses in Florida

I'm told the grass wicks up the limestone          underneath the pastures,and that grazing it strengthens the bone.This is not found in Florida alone,          of course, but in past yearsthe density of horse farms has grown,

as has demand for attorneys of equine          law, governing the long syringeof parentage and fiduciary parties,no less whimsical and byzantine          because all consequences hingeon the silent nonsignatories.

(Did the miniature horses, say,          have any input when they were bredto grace the close perspectivesand take our breath away          on roads they'd be electrified to tread?But yes, they too loved their ornamental lives.)

Springs disguised the osteoporotic landscape.          The long line at the women's toiletdidn't preclude girls picking an ear,scratching a bite, adjusting a strap—          such care lavished on their feet—twitching at the utilitarian mirror.

Amid the trees and horripilated flora,          in reverse-duckling fashion,I trailed behind two boys—one my son— their lengthening strides and hair a          manifesto of dispassion,a teenage state of abandon.