Bray by Christopher Salerno

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend August 4, 2016   Bray   Christopher Salerno

It’s summer here so soda pop and blue jeans in the trees. I am peeling my sunburn on a bus bound for Saratoga Springs where I will lob my father’s ashes on the line where the racehorses finish one at a time, and as they do, the mist of a million particles of ash in the air, all likeness will disappear between us. I had built a boundary out of skin where I sat quietly until blood was the only moving thing on a map of where we are. On the dirt track, horses fill their lungs in the sun and urge on. When a losing horse dips its head to greet me, his black whiskers tickle the flesh of my neck. Why do all hearted creatures stink? I am asked by my brother’s youngest child, Is horse your favorite or least favorite mammal? I say don’t beg the Lord if the sky is a gray roof beneath which you have waited all day to see gallop something graceful, swift.            Copyright © 2016 Christopher Salerno. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “My dad loved to bet the horses, and Saratoga was his favorite track. The summer after his sudden death, I traveled upstate to take in a few races with my brother and his kids. After the fifth or sixth race, I snuck up to the finish line fence with a Dixie cup full of dad’s gravelly ashes, giving them a good fling onto the track. The horses ran so hard through his dust and their own dust—it was all I could ask for from the moment.” —Christopher Salerno   Christopher Salerno is the author of Sun & Urn (University of Georgia Press, 2017). He is an associate professor at William Paterson University and lives in Caldwell, New Jersey. Poetry by Salerno   Sun & Urn (University of Georgia Press, 2017) "The Leash" by Ada Limón "The Path" by Emily Fragos "Horses at Midnight Without a Moon" by Jack Gilbert Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. 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