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SUSTAINMENT Here at the level of leaves supposedly for good Stopped dead on the ground, From the safety of picturesque height she was suddenly Falling into the creek, the path That held her become a flight of dirt. She And the horse screamed all together, and went down. Not knowing her, but knowing who she was Before the creek bank gave Way and the hooves broke through into creek-shaped air, I come walking past all the remaining leaves At the edge, knowing the snow of dirt Down the bank has long since stopped, Seeing the gap in the ledge above the stream Still hold the print Of a horse's head-down side, aware that I can stoop With my love, who is with me, and feel The earth of that blurred impression Where it is cold with time and many unmeaningful rains. Love, this wood can support our passion, though leaves Are not enough death To balance what we must act out. Let me double down My autumn raincoat near the summer pit Where the unknowable woman was riding proudly The high crest of June, her pink shirt open-throated, Her four hooves knocking deeply on the earth, the water Unconsciously holding Its flow in the pressure of sunlight, a snail Glinting like a molar at the brink, And felt it all give way in one clear scream Lifted out the horse through her lipsticked mouth, And then, ripping the path clean out of the woods, Landslid down fifty feet, Snapping high-grade leather, past any help in the world Falling 2 6 7 As the horse turned over her, in a long changed shape Loomed once, crossed the sun and the upper trees Like a myth with a hold on her feet, and fell on her With all his intended mass. Know, love, that we Shall rise from here Where she did not, lying now where we have come Beneath the scrambling animal weight Of lust, but that we may sense also What it involves to change in one half-breath From a thing half-beast—that huge-striding joy Between the thighs— To the wholly human in time To die, here at this height Near the vague body-print of a being that struggled Up, all animal, leaving the human clothes In their sodden bundle, and wandered the lane of water Upstream and home, His bridle dragging, his saddle Maniacally wrenched, stopping often to drink Entirely, his eyes receiving bright pebbles, His head in his own image where it flowed. 268 ...

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