The January Sky

The mare, dead since November, still lies

on its side in the field of corn stubble,

the result of local custom and the lack

of a thaw since the first hard freeze.

One ear is cupped to the ground

filling like a seashell

with the rales made by the town

dying in its sleep

three miles to the south.

(When the truck comes in late March

they will have to peel up a layer of sod

to get all the body)

All night the raised ear like radar

gathers the complaints of the animals

against life and the cold while frost

makes its trap out of the tangled mane-

coating each hair like a brittle needle

until entering moonlight cannot escape

but reflects through the maze until

all its energy is spent and it

is drained off down the deep roots

of the hair into the milk of the neck.

The beam from the cracked purple eye

is locked on the one blank spot in Pegasus

that moves each night toward spring like

a black truck across the ice of the January sky.