The Tiny Men in the Horse’s Mouth

Abstract

The Tiny Men in the Horse’s Mouth Matthew Olzmann (bio) Never look a gift horse in the mouth? But what if on the horse’s tongue there’s a tiny little man playing piano? Why would you not look at that? That’s incredible. —Dan Cummins It’s why the gift horse is a gift, and there is always a tiny man inside, though sometimes more than one. You should look; peer as far back as you can, because if he’s not playing piano, he and his friends might be sharpening blades inside that dark, inside the horse’s belly, inside your sleeping city. Twenty men crawl out of the gift: you’ll want to see this; you’ll want to see how they spill into the city, and open the gates, and paint everything the color of burned flesh. The war is ending. Achilles is dead. Paris lives on in shame. And one man plays piano as the city burns. I’ve been there. And because I didn’t look, I never saw it coming. The phone calls in the middle of the night. Hospital beds. Friends staggering in, and the world on fire. The horse’s mouth. Pry the jaws back and stare through the phlegm that falls between the teeth and the hallway of the throat. [End Page 19] Whoever told you not to look at this is hiding something, because the world is beautiful, haunted, and begging you to receive its offering. May you never find such music again. [End Page 20] Matthew Olzmann Matthew Olzmann’s first book of poems, Mezzanines, was selected for the 2011 Kundiman Poetry Prize and will be published by Alice James Books in 2013. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Southern Review, Failbetter, and elsewhere. Copyright © 2012 Middlebury College Publications