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back CATHERINE STAPLES
Moon Blind
Overnight our white pony is wizened, his good eye sewn shut
after a kick or a nail. The other eye is moon blind:
better, then worse as the crescent thins. On a good day
it once tracked the flit of movement; now it’s a still pool,
unwitting mirror of a world he can’t see. Last night—snow,
now it’s gusting mist. Today’s a washout loss to be blind.
Snow so bright the shadows seem sculpted, the dark godly,
illumined as when the sea suddenly flattens:
glitter of moon in shallow troughs. Surely he sensed
before it happened, fleet register in the treble of spine.
A slump of snow thunders from the barn roof. Sidelined, blind.
Still he lifts his whiskered chin to the blow of white,
a microcosm shivers through whale-dark days. Snow scrims
the valley of his sunken eye, glitter pricks each lash in ice:
translated, shriven—for all we know—still-vigilant guardian of our world.
Feeding the Hounds
Moon Blind
Sleeping
in the Good Bed