interlocking hooves and horns

twisted together to form great chains

of muscle, a mountain range of clashing

bodies linked together by the leg, a wolf

snapping at a man who grips him by the ears.

The vase commemorates the nation’s

Corps of Discovery: the scene itself culled

from Lewis’s descriptions

of an Indian jump he found the winter

before he lost his mind.

The vase’s color is something between

burnt wheat and burnished copper. It has a sheen

like the painted flanks on the picture

of Jefferson’s favorite horse, Caractacus:

named for the Celtic king who fought

the Romans, was taken as a slave

but spoke so eloquently he was given

his freedom. A model for Americans

to revere, the president wrote, even if they do not

remember him: symbol of native cunning

and resistance, whose power lies

in reported speeches.

Birthday Poem

BIRTHDAY POEM

It is important to remember that you will die,

lifting the fork with the sheep’s brain

lovingly speared on it to the mouth: the little

piece smooth on the one side as a baby

mouse pickled in wine; on the other, blood-

plush and intestinal atop its bed of lentils.

The lentils were once picked over for stones

in the fields of India perhaps, the sun

shining into tractor blades slow moving

as the swimmer’s arms that pierce,

then rise, then pierce again the cold

water of this river outside your window called

The Heart or The Breast, even, but meaning

something more than this, beyond

the crudeness of flesh, though what

is crude about flesh anyway, watching yourself

every day lose another bit of luster?

It is wrong to say one kind of beauty

replaces another. Isn’t it your heart

along with its breast muscles that

has started to weaken; solace

isn’t possible for every loss, or why else

should we clutch, stroke, grasp, love

the little powers we once were born with?

Perhaps the worst thing in the world

would be to live forever.

Otherwise, what would be the point

of memory, without which

we would have nothing to hurt

or placate ourselves with later?

Look. It is only getting worse

from here on out. Thank God. Otherwise

the sun on this filthy river

could never be as boring or as poignant,

the sheep’s brain trembling on the fork

wouldn’t seem once stung

by the tang of grass, by the call

of some body distant and beloved to it

still singing through the milk. The fork

would be only a fork, and not the cool

heft of it between your fingers, the scratch

of lemon in the lentils, onions, parsley

slick with blood; food that,

even as you lift it to your mouth,

you never thought you’d eat. And do.

Mortal Love

MORTAL LOVE

If we were immortal, the poet said, like

the Greek gods, love

would not be needed because time

ceases to matter: love