Adrienne Rich
Centaur's Requiem

Your hooves drawn together underbelly

shoulders in mud    your mane

of wist and soil deporting all the horse of you

 

your longhaired neck

eyes   jaw yes   and ears

unforgiveably human on such a creature

unforgiveably what you are

deposited in the grit-kicked field of a champion

 

tender neck and nostrils   teacher   water-lily suction-spot

what you were   marvelous   we could not stand

 

Night drops   an awaited storm

driving in to wreck your path

Foam on your hide like flowers

where you fell   or fall   desire

 
Found In Volume 33, No. 04
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  • Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
About the Author

Adrienne Rich authored numerous books of poems, including School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000 — 2004 (W.W. Norton, 2004), which won the Book Critics Circle Award. She died in 2012 at the age of 82.