Wild Horses
“I watched you suffer a dull, aching pain.”
—The Rolling Stones
Mustangs were bred for stamina, little knock-kneed
engines. In The Misfits they were bred for dog food.
Marilyn Monroe was even more beautiful in black and white.
When she says she can hear her skin against her clothes
we believe her, are with her in the desert. The mustangs
crest the small hill and appear, wild-eyed, kicking up dust
and sagebrush. She watches the men hobble their legs,
preparing them for the gunshot, the daggers, the grave,
tin cans of dog food in the cupboards of every home
in America. Their liquid eyes are ageless, their big hearts
pealing like cold, bronze bells. This is a role not centered
around her breasts, her chest cut open, nails in her heart.
Not a joke, not a paradise for fantasy. It was her final movie.
She was found at home, face down, holding onto a phone.
She was born in June and died in August, near the end
of summer, white pills spilled on the rug. She always said
she liked to sleep. The men who surrounded her slipped
their glasses over their noses to look at her,
in the gymnasiums of their dreams unable to raise one barbell,
one sad cloud. Suddenly tired of their excuses, one
held her feet, one held her shoulders, and they lifted her up.
