How many times can you
watch the horses spin around so steadily
before you see their sentience,
the buried interior of more surfaces?
Not the pumps and gears themselves
but their metal skins, rustless.
Beneath the glazed china,
the chipped teeth
in forever-gaping mouths,
silver cogs move and pulse,
clucking like tongues,
conversing in iron, steel,
the cold dialect of nickel.
How many boli of propofol,
how many uneventful surgeries
before you stop worrying? Listen:
it is just as likely for your patients,
unresponsive on the table,
to realize what’s happening
by the surgeon’s hand
as it is for these horses,
wide-eyed in their spinning parade,
to wink at you.
But how many times
can the carousal turn
before the animals seem to whinny?
How many times can a body
slip into unconsciousness
before it starts to remember?
