It's still cool enough to let out a breath and see
it rise. Still gray enough for the city to drape
like an old woman. Miles away, a foal bellows
in a field by a misty overpass. She has stepped
on a rattler, its fangs already deep in her ankle.
Her eyes dilate, grow round as her new belly.
What the heart does next is cruel: how it lifts
in panic, the quick livening of the body before
it slackens. Her knees buckle, and grass swallows
her frame like lips on a flask. I thought it would be
nice to leave the city, to see springtime break across
the country. How unlike me—to confuse birth with
beauty: the flowers budding all red, the trees hard
in the sun, the slumped shape of the foal breathing
one, two, stop. Everything thaws in a slow hurt.