Poet Wrestling with Atonement Poem by Rosebud Ben-Oni

So I turn you into a horse but you are jealous of that horse.

& so you've chosen to die.

Or rather: the horse will not
not be skinned. There. {There.} Feel better. Next year
I'll teach you to swim & you'll carry us north
for wintertime.

So I turn you into
a horse, a water horse, with sealskin & steely
fins that never tire, but still you are jealous
of some distant & parched mire
wanting to bury me
in a rusted flask.

Wanting all my bare skin
skunned in wineflesh.

As proof

of first horse-&-human debt,
unborn seed
far away from smokeless winter
chimney & singed
evergreen

kickedstraight

to the curb.

& even if we'd return
{minutes} before the world's end, still

I'd turn you into a horse who would die
dying for the music.

Underneath ivory
tabernacle, under holy child.

& still you lament the tusk
warped into wings,

the horns hammered for organ keys.

& now you're a songless thing tearing through
the middle of this horse, who(m) if I don't finish,
will be left swimming
in loose folds of ocean
for eternity

—so I turn you into a horse

& you say the ice is not a place for sacrifice.

So I turn you into {a horse} & you say: turn me

into a drop of rain & I swear by the skun

of our sins you& I

will never see land again.