The Horse and the Star

John Alexander, “Dances in the Wind”

 by Matt Moment

The horse and the star are dancing, dancing! 

O, the horse and the burning sun 

dance on the violet floor of Heaven above. 

All the women sit their gardens, as midday 

all dims. Usual noon is unbright, 

sky untotally mimicking night. The tongue 

that tries to logic horse and star is 

utmost paralyzed. For once in a holy while, 

this once, the dance must be a myth. 

Decorative gardens tremble like seizing 

while the horse and the mighty star showboat footwork:

 jitterbug fantasias involving steps old and steps uninvented, 

uniting scholars and psychonauts into their frenzied limbs.

 Starlight flares in careless ecstasy—faceless, but almost smiling. 

Hooves pound on the paved ceiling of the kingdom come. 

They let the world watch. The dance is delivered to all 

as if a confidence most secret. Evil, for a moment, 

is thrown to the wayside. Or, no—better yet, 

Evil too glimpses this natural dimension, impressed 

through its crossed arms and flowering Lucky Strike smoke. 

The songless song passes. The horse 

and the brilliant star swirl in a perfect whirl 

of horsehide brown, sky thistle and ultrawhite, 

pooling in impossible, dissolving into sound, 

falling like warm xylophone rain. 

It all comes back. A dance, oh, they’re dancing! 

The people remember, the people forget. The people remember.