The other mentions his mother, who died, last year—

When the orchards were simple with their fruit,

And ripe—of an undiagnosed illness.

And if the lots they pass are empty because the horses

Were shipped off years ago to Warsaw

For the meat on their backs?

And if there is no hope for this,

Or any poetry?

On their lips the quick syllables of their

Language fly & darken into a few, last

Delicious phrases, arpeggios—

Even though they are talking of ordinary life

As they pass the smells of cooking

Which rise in smoke from the poorest of houses

And even from stoves carried outdoors & burning,

As fuel, the cheap paneling of shacks

Which the government gave them.

Until it seems that all they are

Rises in smoke,

As it always has,

And as it will continue to do in this place

For a few more years.

SENSATIONALISM

In Josef Koudelka's photograph, untitled & with no date

Given to help us with history, a man wearing

Dark clothes is squatting, his right hand raised slightly,

As if in explanation, & because he is talking,

Seriously now, to a horse that would be white except

For its markings—the darkness around its eyes, muzzle,

Legs & tail, by which it is, technically, a gray, or a dapple gray,

With a streak of pure white like heavy cream on its rump.

There is a wall behind them both, which, like most walls, has

No ideas, & nothing to make us feel comfortable….

After a while, because I know so little, &

Because the muted sunlight on that wall will not change,

I begin to believe that the man's wife & children

Were shot & thrown into a ditch a week before this picture

Was taken, that this is still Czechoslovakia, & that there is

The beginning of spring in the air. That is why

The man is talking, & as clearly as he can, to a horse.

He is trying to explain these things,

While the horse, gray as those days at the end

Of winter, when days seem lost in thought, is, after all,

Only a horse. No doubt the man knows people he could talk to:

The bars are open by now, but he has chosen

To confide in this gelding, as he once did to his own small

Children, who could not, finally, understand him any better.

This afternoon, in the middle of his life & in the middle

Of this war, a man is trying to stay sane.

To stay sane he must keep talking to a horse, its blinders

On & a rough snaffle bit still in its mouth, wearing

Away the corners of its mouth, with one ear cocked forward to listen,

While the other ear tilts backward slightly, inattentive,

As if suddenly catching a music behind it. Of course,

I have to admit I have made all of this up, & that

It could be wrong to make up anything. Perhaps the man is perfectly

Happy. Perhaps Koudelka arranged all of this