saddles

so is it still violence when there is no violence and
what is it when one sees violence where
there is no violence, just a woman and her
epileptic convulsive movements on a stage and a tall man beside her but not seeing her,
like a scientist ignoring a small and distressed and objected animal.

she puts on a blonde wig and shakes her body. the tall man subjects and objects: "she is bending over--
there is a flower growing behind her--"

the audience, around her in a fan, nods.

but what is it when the woman is not hurt but you
feel viscerally otherwise.

it is your own ghost gasping,

like the dead farmer who is
hovering and moaning over the infant colt who is

so important, a gleaming body, wobbling, but before long galloping
off in the other direction without him.