Switched-on Gutenberg Issue 16
Assemblage
After the Centaur Lecture

And the cop flipped open a tiny notebook for Truc, as she curled in the
restroom stall, cupping her cell phone. “I live on Brooklyn. The judge
won’t like it. A seventeen-year-old girl living by herself in the U.”
The mouse was thrown on the bonfire by accident, or perhaps with malice.
Now Truc was talking to her friend in California. I’d spotted her head
on the green canvas bag. They’re going to call an ambulance!
The young female centaur put her hand over her privates, which were
placed in the wrong place (forequarters). Chiron saw his patients in his cave.
I’d learned that man and horse are biologically related. Odd-fingered
animals resemble first cousins. Truc didn’t want to leave her stall.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re a student.” “Yes, m’am, I’ll keep my birth control pills
and Prozac with me.” The female centaur: concave reds and a concave hand.
The mouse ran back into the house and set it ablaze. Uneasy heavens
await those fleeing. Last night, the skewed wreath looked like a keyhole.
Truc’s mom left Vietnam when Saigon collapsed. Truc wasn’t even a glimmer
in her mother’s eye. Truc ate meat that had sat out on the counter.
Chiron remained inside his cave, nesting on his own whitened hide.
He could have lived forever, but he was in too much pain. A female centaur
is like two women who come with a gurney. Chiron trusted his daughter
to go outside.  


Copyright 2010,  Deborah Woodard

Deborah Woodard holds a BA, MA, MFA and a PhD. Her first full-length collection, Plato's Bad Horse (Bear Star Press), was published in 2006. The Dragonfly , her translation (with G.Leporace) of the poetry of Amelia Rosselli, was published in 2009.



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