Used up
Thomas McGrath

1.

I remember the new-dropped colts in the time when I was a boy:

The steam of their bodies in the cold morning like a visible soul,

And the crimped hairy ring of warmed grass, first circle of sleep.

Spider-legged, later, they ate sugar from my shaken, scary hand.

2.

In a few more years they were broken: their necks were circled

With a farmer’s need: with the dead leather legends and collars

                                                                        of their kin.

Gelded, the wild years cut out of them, harnessed to the world,

They walk the bright days’ black furrows and gilded seasons of use.

3.

Now, dead; swung from the haymow track with block and tackle:

Gut-slit, blood in a tub for pigs, their skin dragged over

Their heads by a team of mules. Circlet of crows:

                                                                     coyote song:

                                                                                 and bones

Rusting coulee moonlight: lush greenest spring grass where the body

Leaped.

                 Three acts and death.

                                                            The horse

                                                                                            rides

Into the earth.