Coronillas

Two bones, white, in an open field. A horse’s pelvis. A long, broken leg bone. In the distance, brown hills. Around the bones, three horses crop the long grass. Behind them a circle of spiky coronillas, thorny trees that grow so slowly it has taken them four hundred years to stand slightly taller than the horses. Inside, I know, is deep shade, a circle of earth packed by the hoofs of animals who take shelter there. Once there were four horses. Now only three. One brown, one red, one white, but not as white as the bones. I think the coronillas are a doorway to something only horses can see. I think these bones are the foundations of a temple. I think the hills are too far away for any of us to reach while we live.


Jesse Lee Kercheval is a poet, writer, and translator, specializing in Uruguayan poetry. Her latest poetry collections include America that island off the coast of France, winner of the Dorset Prize, and the bilingual Spanish–English La crisis es el cuerpo / The Crisis is The Body, published in Argentina by Editorial Bajo la luna. Her latest poetry book, I Want to Tell You, will be published in spring 2023 by University of Pittsburgh Press.