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Bucephalus, Charging

Riding over Persia

on titanium hooves, my gallop

tearing up the DMZ,

I stomp down a refinery, trail a scat

of incinerated cars, running

from my shadow

as I strike at the sun. One brown eye,

one blue. I’m star-marked…

my barding, bulletproof.

I’m the noise of a wedding

on fire. Bombed-out tenements

quake as I pass. In my blinders

and heavy headstall, I smell

petroleum burning and hear

a high-winding cry.

from Charms Against LightningFind it in the library

Copyright © 2012 James Arthur
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.

Published in James Arthur Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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