Por Una Cabeza: A Hybrid Poem
You rode me like a weary and worn out horse,
then put me in the stable, dripping with sweat.
Before I had much to eat, and without sleep,
you took me back out to the damned racecourse.
You forced me to take up the Spanish tango,
although my feet were shod with these horseshoes.
Then force-fed me with way too much bad booze
and made me nibble on that luscious mango.
Being a horse, I could sleep standing up.
You did not need a saddle on your night rides.
I made it around the racetrack–that dark dusk.
Win, place, and show, without a winner’s cup.
But on the stands you were the judge and jury,
who’d said the other stallion won the race.
Claiming to the cheering, admiring crowds:
He lost by a head, measuring hooves and hands.
By a head…
By a…
Head.
Por una cabeza…
Por una…
Cabeza.
“Birds in the Setting Sun” painting is by the author’s god-daughter, Nisa Winter.