PEGASUS TATTOO ON THE LEFT by Jai Hamid Bashir

A horse is a muscular hyphen—
connecting humans to nighttides of the open 
                  animal world beyond us. Last night I dreamt 
                  that you married someone who wasn’t me. 

A winged horse is a regatta of stars—
human’s first spacecraft, the moon, too, 
                  is a changing hoof. How far upwards 
                  each verve of the earth, a lunarship searching

for unknown fruit. The tail, a brush of a comet’s 
glitterfreeze. I’ve sailed on these half-wings. 
                  The dream rivets to silent, deep space. 
                  The event horizon: an open gate. 

The cold ocean is not a horse —
Mare and mer: false cognates. 
                  Lunar mare: dark waves 
                  of basalt, ancient stargazers misunderstood

to be water, maria. Pronounce this Medusa. 
Sidus signs of your tongue on the lateral
                  of my dark thighs. An odious oasis calls, a desert
                  mer. Snakeskin glints in impastos of sage: 

layers of landscape. I’ll take handfuls 
home with your old jackknife. I’ll siren into
                  chalk-smoke motes, shadowed patterns
                  on celestial bodies. So, what else do I remember

of this dream? The mane falls wild on my black coat. 
White heat from the planets, cantered light 
                  from behind the plateau. How far of a dive 
                   into la mer until each creature 

becomes eyeless? Saturn’s witness has shores. 
La Mer. I am the mare with a seven-pound heart. 
                  I know I was meant to lose you. 
                  Come, now out of the sing of river —

                  drink a godsong, like horses out of green 
                  buds about to speak into spring.