May 24th

I am empty of poems,
gant as a pulling horse before the scales,
belly sucked up and no words, what can I tell you?
Last night the moonlight was a skim of sweat
on the rhubarb leaves, one night in a week of nights.

A fledgling robin free falling from the porch rail
cushioned by lilac blossoms in his first flight attempt,
kittens born in a closet and a filly foal dropped in a hard rain.
Searching for the poem I write pages I burn,
waiting for words to coagulate, become form, any form.

I make a paste of oatmeal and salt
to press on the foal's head as the old ones
did to newborns, an Irish protection from evil.
On the fourth day, a late spring snow snapped
the lilac branches, dissolved the pear and apple petals.
The foal left footprints the size of Ritz crackers in the snow.

What can I tell you? I forgot your birthday.
Making tea, glancing at the calendar, May 24th.
There was a time when my American life
was the substitute, a filer for my loneliness.
I was a woman in borrowed clothes.
Did I really write you every day?

But I have settled, and my horses fill me like cream.
You once told me to quit picking the scab.
So I am finally here and not homesick,
and you get birthday greetings belatedly.
I am here watching the foal nurse,
while the geldings nibble the first green shoots,
My world has telescoped to this field,
this whicker, this hoof print.

Mary Beth O'Shea

Biography

Mary-Beth O'Shea has two published collections: Hungry Grass and In Search of the Barnacle Goose. She and her husband Kip have six Belgians and 4 donkeys. They live in Worthington.