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The summer that I was ten --
Can it be there was only one 
summer that I was ten? It must

have been a long one then -- 
each day I'd go out to choose 
a fresh horse from my stable

which was a willow grove 
down by the old canal.
I'd go on my two bare feet. 

But when, with my brother's jack-knife, 
I had cut me a long limber horse 
with a good thick knob for a head,

and peeled him slick and clean 
except a few leaves for the tail, 
and cinched my brother's belt

around his head for a rein, 
I'd straddle and canter him fast
up the grass bank to the path,

trot along in the lovely dust 
that talcumed over his hoofs, 
hiding my toes, and turning

his feet to swift half-moons. 
The willow knob with the strap 
jouncing between my thighs

was the pommel and yet the poll 
of my nickering pony's head. 
My head and my neck were mine,

yet they were shaped like a horse. 
My hair flopped to the side 
like the mane of a horse in the wind.

My forelock swung in my eyes, 
my neck arched and I snorted. 
I shied and skittered and reared, 

stopped and raised my knees,
pawed at the ground and quivered. 
My teeth bared as we wheeled

and swished through the dust again. 
I was the horse and the rider, 
and the leather I slapped to his rump 

spanked my own behind.
Doubled, my two hoofs beat 
a gallop along the bank,

the wind twanged in my mane, 
my mouth squared to the bit. 
And yet I sat on my steed 

quiet, negligent riding, 
my toes standing the stirrups,
my thighs hugging his ribs. 

At a walk we drew up to the porch. 
I tethered him to a paling. 
Dismounting, I smoothed my skirt

and entered the dusky hall.
My feet on the clean linoleum 
left ghostly toes in the hall.

Where have you been? said my mother. 
Been riding, I said from the sink, 
and filled me a glass of water.

What's that in your pocket? she said.
Just my knife. It weighted my pocket 
and stretched my dress awry.

Go tie back your hair, said my mother, 
and Why Is your mouth all green?
Rob Roy, he pulled some clover 
as we crossed the field, I told her. 

From Cage of Spines by May Swenson. Published by Rinehart. Copyright © 1958 the Literary Estate of May Swenson.

Question 
by May Swenson

Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen

Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt

Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead

How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift
how will I hide?

From Another Animal by May Swenson. Published by Scribner. Copyright © 1954 the Literary Estate of May Swenson.

Two beatings I remember from childhood:
once, because I dared ask why, when the mothers
of my playmates in the inland village were rosy-plump

           as peaches and smelled of ovens and good flour,
           my own mother's skin was milk and nacre
           and always bore the tang of salt; another time,

                       for finding and playing with the shimmering
                       green she kept bundled high in the armoire.
                       It was hard, so hard, to be the only child in my village,

                                   bundled every afternoon into my room, bidden
                                   not to peep out of windows for the next hour.
                                   I couldn't help it. I did. How was I to understand

                                              that dead-still avenue that wound down
                                              to the sea, my mother and the neighbor women
                                              (all white and silent with wine-dark eyes)

                                                         ranged, in the solid blue pour of their gowns,
                                                         so many Gothic Marys awaiting Gabriel?
                                                         Much less the bay, where shimmering green fish

                                                                and naked women sported in the waves. Sometimes
                                                                I fancied I heard them weeping as they emerged dripping
                                                                to slip once more into imprisoning clothes.

                                              Only later I learned how the village men brought home
                                               their captured brides, each with a roll of shimmering green,

                                who cried tearlessly on their wedding nights
                                at the sundering of their new legs,

                       and even now, in the city, when my lover kisses
                       my white knees, he tells me I taste of salt
                       and I tremble. I tremble.

We are late.
We are going to be late.
It is already three in the morning
and the noon sun blazes on graceful women hanging sheets
from coral trees and skeletons of giants,
on the urchins who sleep in marble fountains
that reek of old wedding cake,

look, they are giving us
ripe peaches with rosaries
for pits, I think
we've lost our way again.
I don't recall this alley
or these gypsies trying
to sell us red carnations.

I don't understand
why the younger one is screaming
and lashing me with the flowers,
the stems collapsing on themselves.
all I can do is laugh and laugh
at the scarlet flails, at the pigeons
on the balcony above

who are turning into boys
and flying away.

I.
Flame-flicker of tail-tip the only betrayal:
amazing, how invisible pure black in sunlight
can be if it chooses. This one, charcoal smudge
on pavement, is its own shadow,
in search of better quarry than dead leaves.
Running shy through scrubby grass at my approach.
Spilt driblet of ink, words not yet written.

II.

Nearly midnight: four of us on the steps, reeling
with cold and laughter and vodka, Ben is fumbling
for the keys to his flat and we hear it:
the rich unthinking anger of a baby's howl.
I sobers us at once.
                              No child,
instead a huge claico with baleful moon-eyes
and a human voice. Oh come off it, Ben scoffs.
Reincarnation? Transmigration
of souls? Whatever - but we're all shivering 
when we get inside. Through closed windows
we can still hear the cries.

III.

Head without the knife-planes of a hunter,
a battered block instead - Zuccone, I call him,
pumpkinhead, after Donatello's ugly prophet,
and he takes the sun with the same wounded 
equanimity. Every afternoon he watches me pass,
head lolling on his huge fighter's shoulders,
with eyes the color
of spring grass freashly bruised.