1992 (Nachtlied)

And then sex sometimes felt like a clenched horse refusing.
Some dark-in-me dragged stiff-hoofed down a back city street,

to be heaved at a doorstep, "release."
A tall townhouse.
I lay on the stone gazing at its shut door.

And it's just another story
of the self and itself. And looking back
I feel most tender for the bridled, bucking part,

what struggled to dislodge
her sour metal bit as if trying to shake off
her own tongue and jaw.

But the other—the me with her grip on the muzzle—
my heart sometimes thickens to her,

how she forced this struggling pelt
through the gates
of the city, down cobblestones, bloodied with forcing.

The threats of my breaker, archaic and weird.
The crazed of my broken. But listen—

beyond that shut door, I sensed heaven, peace, riches—
and you, love, appeared only briefly.

Watching you watching, I thought we'd get in,

but you came, cold starlight, to lead us away.

Copyright © 2008 Lizzie Hutton All rights reserved
from Harvard Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission