North Frieze Block XLIII, Figures 118-20

We know they lived short lives in a world of slavery:

is this why their faces are so beautiful and grave,

one wearing a soft cap, pooled at his shoulders,

another naked, the line of his back

like a tornado's funnel, in a monochrome canter

riding into the gruel and blizzard of time

that by now has scoured their tack away,

the horses superb beneath three young men,

cheek pressed to throatlatch in a curve so powerful

it will never come unsprung, even in the explosion

of their own stalled momentum, veins on their bellies

and hocks and forearms standing in pure joy,

reined in at the last possible moment

before plunging off the edge into eternity?
 

Karl Kirchwey
October 2011