Hrhm Shp, colt-culling,

Is what hoof lore calls it—

The choke-chain sound a roan coined

To describe the things he saw

Before the sniff weevils crept

Up his nostrils and chewed

His eyes at the hue-sweet root.

Mother mares scare foals

From folly-trots and foxglove

By telling them fury tales

Of muck stirrup-deep and shells

Shoveling Passchendaele

Onto Passchendaele,

The foal fallen with the boy.

One memory, common

To all breeds, spurs night mares

Sparking down the mute streets

Of their sleep, gas-blind

Witnesses scraping Krupp

Guns over the cobblestones,

Winged sparks breeding in the hay.

Having watched us box and ditch

Our dead, they thought our dead

Ate termite-runnels

In the black bark of the land

And pulled all horsefolk down

To join whatever dark cavalry

Thundered underground.

The burlap gas mask cupped

And strapped to the wet snout

Could be mistaken, when

The gas gong sounded

And the men grew fly-heads,

For a feed sack chock-

Full of red ants.