QUARTERS

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Every day basil smells like what basil smells
like. Every single day a man is tied to horses and seamed
apart. Even medieval punishments aren’t medieval, they never
were. Four separate horses. All of history’s common denominators
sound like someone losing it, losing their life.

The basil, bring some basil inside for the tomatoes;
smell it on your fingers, the dust of living things.

Pain is not some little thing. The horses feel it, straining,
corded and killed too. The horses, come bring the horses
out to pasture, they’ve done enough. They’ve forgotten their riders.

Though they were ridden into murder, they thought
they’d come up with the killing on their own. Everything
took on a different smell, the wind smelled like it did after
lightning. It was the smell they remembered. Everyone forgets
pain.