Ghazal for the Centaur
Come boy He says To the teacher The tenor
of his voice half-thunder half-tender
My feet as if haunted My feet as if chained
My feet made their purpose These tendrils
To the edge To the point where end-of-the-field
means start-of-the-woods To that tension
Where end-of-the-woods meets lip-of-the-river
To the curve of that lip His lips and the tension
Who saw him first in the shade By the water
Who saw the flood in that centaur’s attention
A centaur made different With his two human legs
The beast hid inside him Half-thunder half-tender
(Like a beast thought in me) As what my father said:
Rickey, a man with a man is a monster