Once the epileptic tremors
on the dark, glancing sides
of thoroughbreds cause
rainclouds to gather like pickpockets,

and the flight of hooves
churns up the blackened track,
its rails a spaced, shining white curve
into a smiling savage.

The tickets that fall like oversized confetti
around the twisted fedora brims of losing bettors,
the seamed and shining trousers, their hems,
their fallen luck immovable as stone.

What comes at the edge of these dying days
are not secrets to us, unburdened beasts—
the gallop of the vexing hours
that slow to a canter against the drooping sun.