Grace Note
The night by hours the horse by hands.
Our grudges measured in the salt the moon shed.
They weigh me down like prey does a mouth.
You died like the animal of a sudden.
Because it can not reckon its end.
Each footfall in the past’s savage fashion.
Because the one sound it knows is song.
And the one song it knows is now.
Afterfeather
after the myth of Philomena
The past tracks your scent. At your heels
like king’s hounds and hungrier.
This is what comes after massacre.
Your tongue cut from the root. The purple
need to weave what placed you rough-
handed here. This is what comes after massacre.
If the thread can be read by your sister. If
you can kill what’s most dear to your defiler.
If you can feed what’s most dear to your defiler.
(Like the tail in the mouth of the snake rattling
at the taste.). This is what comes after
massacre: a fistful of feathers.
And what does it matter? Whether
they will take flight or fold over.
And you’ll
carry and carry out the same sentence, letter
by letter. Throat holding its single
note. Memorized like some kind of prayer.
Rising through the limbs by octaves each year:
this is what comes to the ear after massacre.
Its weight not wearing at the heart
‘til it’s marble. Or muting to
watercolor. Or dispelling like rumor.
But becoming an unbeautiful muse.
Sing it to the tarnished sling of moon.
Write it with the red at the base of the feather:
For the winged, the blood is always warm.
For the scorned, the story is always at the start.
Shadow Play
Your hands held
to the tune
of an elk’s
head
and me,
curled like a bass
clef in bed:
we fill in
the blanks
of night.
Days come
together
like braids.
My hocks ache
in growth.
Now the pelvis’
punctual spate.
And ease
is a shadow.
And shadow is
reflection’s
father.
An antler
at water.
Already I’m
an animal
you don’t
understand.
Stacy Gnall is the author of Heart First into the Forest (Alice James Books, 2011). Her poems have appeared in journals including The Cincinnati Review, The Florida Review, and Indiana Review. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Alabama’s MFA program, she is currently a PhD candidate in literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California. She is at work on both a poetry manuscript and criticism that explore the human-animal connection.
