Late Gallop

An opaque brim of shadow
hung on my forehead.
Come on, I told myself,
you are a jockey
in the sky
of your late life.
You can still be useful,
even if you can no longer hold out
against the nurse with shiny steel teeth.
And I started to gallop,
between weeds, between forests, between
happy fawns with such tender, humid snouts,
between brilliant, fiery statues, until
I heard a voice whimper
It hurts, everything hurts.
And everything was hurting.
And I entered a cave without end.
And only the far-off snout of a deer
signaled me. And this is all.

Copyright © 2002 Eugen Jebeleanu All rights reserved
translated from the Romanian by Matthew Zapruder
from jubilat three
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission