I once knew a man
a lush on a boneless street
he stood his blade honed
and his poor old mare
that couldn’t belong to him anymore
in the blink of an eye
I’ve never met him
but I knew him
the fiend in his veins
had prevailed over mercy he couldn’t show
my purity was gone
with my ideas of things
holding its bloodshot crest
watching its mane flow in my hands
I’m wine-sodden under rain
crestfallen on its uneaten hay
I only think of a pain that could sink in
in seconds or in twenty years