"You Look Up Pictures of Icelandic Ponies" by Ruth Madievsky

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( May 28, 2019 [You Look Up Pictures of Icelandic Ponies]( [Ruth Madievsky]( before sleep and carry a box cutter for protection you are an animal that is all loins and no dexterity you are the loneliness and non-loneliness of a planet with a flag in it and something ugly raccoon-paws the inner lining of your throat but you swallow it and you smash a snow globe in a parking lot and you leave the door open to the tea factory’s peppermint room contaminating everything the sleepytime blend the almond sunset and genmaicha the hibiscus broth your parents made you drink to prevent recurrent UTIs and outside the palm trees in need of treatment for exotic diseases keep dying slowly like a woman circling a parking lot and if you had to name what you think you are you would say bogwolf and the thing clawing your throat draws blood but you swallow it and you live for the ways people in love penetrate each other for the sweetness of lichens for the return of normal hand smell after wearing latex gloves you thank the bones that made your soup and all the brake pedals that aren’t broken [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( Copyright © 2019 Ruh Madievsky. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 28, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. [Madievsky reads "You Look Up Pictures of Icelandic Ponies."]( About This Poem “Have you ever seen Icelandic horses? I’ve only seen pictures and am very taken with their luscious coats and expressive eyes. A friend who visited Iceland told me that because they live in such isolation, Icelandic horses are totally vulnerable to disease that’s endemic elsewhere. Which means that horses who leave Iceland can never return. This poem is part of a new manuscript I’m working on. If Emergency Brake was about saying the unsayable, this new book is about what happens after. It’s more playful, and lot of the poems are held together by a kind of cartoon logic that resists easy categorization as either funny or sad. The bleak is cut with the absurd, and in every bit of humor there’s a drop of blood.” —Ruth Madievsky [Ruth Madievsky]( Ruth Madievsky is the author of Emergency Brake (Tavern Books, 2016). She works as an HIV and oncology pharmacist, and lives in Boston, Massachusetts. [Emergency Brake]( Poetry by Madievsky [Emergency Brake]( (Tavern Books, 2016) "Why I Am Obsessed with Horses" by Michael McGriff [read-more]( "An Offering" by Kathryn Hunt [read-more]( "Transfigurations" by Arthur Sze [read-more]( May Guest Editor: Victoria Chang Thanks to [Victoria Chang](, author of Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a[Q&A with Chang]( about her curatorial approach this month and find out more about our [guest editors for the year.]( [make a one-time donation]( [illustration]( [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038