Let us, beloved, set aside the signifier’s
glaring need for gelding, ponder
for a time, the signified:
to tend, and be tended.
Could there be a better metaphor
for this life together?
Not mere tendency, the way clematis
leans to the light, nor intent, the oafish
forethought. To be the farmer
and the foal. To conserve.
To find a way to love so nothing can be lost, manifest infinity
like the Bull Semen signs that dot every midwest highway
rendering all the surrounding counties envious.
Let the use of each other then, be judicious,
every gesture pruned, every touch an heirloom,
let us trim away the finite like fat, groom
a tomato of love so no moon, full-faced, no breast
milk-hard, could better embody fullness.
So that some cold night, the voice that once hissed
over the tracks you will not be missed
is drowned out by our love’s livestock train
returning full, its bellowing so lusty it will burn
the fog of doubt from the morning’s wide pasture,
so present in the now it becomes the prayer,
so bright we are left rapturous
in our commonwealth of grasses.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 3.
Elizabeth Cranford Garcia’s most recent work has appeared in Tar River Poetry, Portland Review, CALYX, Tinderbox Poetry, and Anti-Heroin Chic, is the recipient of the 2022 Banyan Poetry Prize, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is the author of Stunt Double and serves as the current Poetry Editor for Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought. Read more of her work at elizabethcgarcia.wordpress.com.
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