Rosebud Ben-Oni is the winner of the 2019 Alice James Award for If This Is the Age We End Discovery, forthcoming in 2021. She is a recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and CantoMundo. Her work appears in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, POETS.org, The Poetry Review (UK), Tin House, Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Prairie Schooner, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, TriQuarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Journal, Hunger Mountain, The Adroit Journal, The Southeast Review, North American Review, Salamander, Poetry Northwest, among others. Her poem "Poet Wrestling with Angels in the Dark" was commissioned by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, and published by The Kenyon Review Online. Her second collection of poems, turn around, BRXGHT XYXS, was selected as Agape Editions Editor’s Choice, and will be published in 2019. She writes for The Kenyon Review blog, and currently teaches at The Speakeasy Project and Poets House. Find her at 7TrainLove.org

{I WANT TO BE WORTHY OF LIVING} by Rosebud Ben-Oni

I want to be worthy of living. I want to be. I keep.
A band. Of horses. Up late at night. Writing poems. Like
these. They are watching me right now. Saying we are resting.
Our eyes. They need very little quality. Rapid-eye. Movement.
Have faster pulse. & dreams. My horses. Sleep standing. & altering.
Hind legs. On our bed. Dappled with hay & softened. Metal. Burning.
In my hands. A forge. Every night a leg on my knee. Waits for me. To hammer
in. The first nail. I bury. My head. Hold my breath. Against soft mane. I rest. My eyes.
Again. When did it begin. When did love pitch me. Soft. & smoldering. Toward a stake.
When I only. Want to protect. Every one of them. So they can sleep. More. Soundly. I tell
myself. This is not impossible. Like standing watch at night. For eternity. So they’ll dream. Far,
far. More my. Horses my horses will. Be different. Rarely. Will they. Wake they will. Keep. Believing.

 

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