Black horses have a deep blue tint
to their eyes;
in the plum-dark night

they hang in the depths of sleep;
and like the sheen of an equine haunch,
the fruit’s black skin magnetizes touch, misted

veil of questions broken
by the press of my thumb.

I would bite
into this sweet, cool planet, red coal
within, right down

to the hard grooved stone
through flesh as dense
as the gallop of blood in the lungs, pulse

of the heart
within the heart, here under fetlock
and throat-latch of the Horsehead

Nebula—celestial, sanguinary,

all thirst and murmur
to savor, rivering the tongue, parting
lips too absorbed to ask,

while consuming the universe,
do I dare?

-Stephen Massimilla