Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.
No Horse
by Mark Wunderlich
No horse.
No piebald Sicilian donkey.
No baby goats gamboling on an old cable spool.
No cat fat and shedding by the stove,
no rooster plumed and cartoonish, dashing about the yard,
putting a hole in my shin with his spur. No rescued cur,
no teacup Pomeranian afraid to walk on grass,
piddling on a pee pad like a god. No God either,
for that matter, no father—he’s all ash. Now Mother
makes a hash of her checkbook. When she last drove?—a small crash.
The guinea pigs of childhood whistle from their graveyard at the dump.
Gide the lascivious Frenchie must hump some other chump.
No sheep weep on hilly bourne. No son—not even
a little one. No girl curled on gay Papa’s lap. No way to stop
what I’ve started here—just steer. Just steer
the goddam big car—look out! –I shout out the window,
but no one hears. Who hears anyway?
Who’s here anyway?
Copyright © 2024 by Mark Wunderlich. This poem was originally published in T().
About the Author
Mark Wunderlich is the author of four collections of poems, the most recent of which is God of Nothingness published by Graywolf Press. His other collections include The Earth Avails, winner of the Rilke Prize, Voluntary Servitude, and The Anchorage, which received the Lambda Literary Award. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Amy Lowell Trust, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Wallace Stegner program at Stanford University. He serves as Executive Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars graduate writing program, and chairs the Writing Committee at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He lives near Catskill, New York.
Queer Poem a Day
Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C Sharp Minor by Ethel Smyth, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.
