Barbaro

Lyn Lifshin is the author of many books of poetry, including Another Woman Who Looks Like Me (Black Sparrow at David Godine), selected for the 2007 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. She lives Vienna, Virginia.

• A Scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream on His Forehead: Barbaro’s Early Years April 29, 2002 When I Think of Barbaro’s Birth Feathers Cushioning Barbaro’s Hooves Inside the Mother’s Body As Barbaro Twisted Towards his Mother’s Milk On That First Morning Early Days in the Paddock On the Day of the Longest Light On Days Like That Barbaro and the Other Colts The Mysterious Eye No Wonder Some Grooms Always Spent a Little More Time with Him On a Day it Seemed the Planets and Stars Chose Still Un-Named, Know as “La Ville” One Groom’s Song Bringing Barbaro to Florida Inside the Barn, Clomp of the Yearlings First Yearling Days in Florida Those Nights in the Stall When I Think What Her Jockey Said About How Easy it was to Take Out Ruffian, I Could Put Barbaro’s Name in Instead Moving on to Fair Hill The Sparrows Saw Him A Horse that Transformed You On a Horse Like That This Night that the Horse that Can’t Be When You See a Horse Glistening in the Morning Light Before the Race In the First Races And Here Comes Barbaro: The Kentucky Derby As Blossoms Rose and Faded The Derby Only One of Six At the Half Pole Four Golden Hooves Glowing Barbaro Breathing Fire After the Derby After the Derby Third Third Saturday in May (Just Before the Preakness) Before His Last Race On the Day of the Preakness Before the Preakness Third Saturday in May, the Preakness As if Running was Breath: the Preakness, the Accident Day After Day He’d Been Pointing Toward This Checked, No One After he Broke Thru the Gate, Reloaded Suddenly the Jockey Felt a A Blurred Image A Horse on Three Legs As Barbaro Writhed The Tarp Loading the Ambulance A Horse Not Ready for the Barns of Darkness Under the Earth Barbaro was Still Shaking As the Police Escort Followed the Van Over While his Life Hung like Petals in Ice Lace of Bones, Tendons and Ligaments: Barbaro’s Surgery Nobody was About to Put this Horse Down Without Giving him a Chance to Live When he Came to The X-Rays Looking More like a Cross-Section of a Bridge Truss Though he Almost Jogged Back to his Stall Because Prado Couldn’t Talk About Barbaro Without Crying Because You’ve Fallen in Love with what You Shouldn’t At Night Along the Fields, his Trainer As if Asking “What’s Next”: June Some Nights in Intensive Care at New Bolton Center As if he’s Asking What’s Next When they Put a TV in Barbaro’s Stall For the Belmont If Barbaro was to Not Make it In the Hospital Barn at Night So Many Night in the Barn Sleeping with Horses You Need a Miracle to Get Through This: July Bad News, Leaking Out Slowly It Took Longer to Recover from Anesthesia from this Latest Procedure This Rollercoaster to Death, this Hoping, Waiting Laminae Will the Bones Heal Before the Hardware Begins to Loosen? On this Almost Dog Day of August Barbaro’s Hoof Barbaro in the Light, Glistening and Dripping: August Every Time his Trainer Walks into Barbaro’s Stall The First Day Out, Barbaro Grazing Video of Barbaro in the Grass Some Nights Barbaro Dreams Another Barbaro Dream First Day Out in the Rain August, Somewhere Past Sparkling Lakes Against All Odds: September, October When You Start to Feel September in the Air On the Metro Slicing October Fog The Leaf Falling Music Mid October Past the Maples: November Late Fall, Tumbling into Winter On These Cold Days, November November 20, 2006 Barbaro Dawn, Breeders Cup Why Do These Horses Mean so Much?: December Camellias Blooming Thru Warm Winter Because he was Standing There Before the Moon Rises Grown Lovers of the Black Stallion and Man of War Barbaro in December Rain No Bandages on Barbaro’s Hind In the Last Weeks of Growing Dark, in Earth too Hard for Barbaro’s On the Last Day of the Longest Night On the Day of Least Light Time with Her Slow Spoon In the Longest Blackness On the Day Before Light Comes Home, December 21 Winter Solstice The Final Miracle, Fiction: January Before Any Snow Record Breaking Warm Brushing Barbaro Before Rain Turns Ice Pellets Crow Thursday On the First Day of Snow White Day Almost Half a Year Since the Bad News of Laminitis When he Stepped to the Door He is Getting Up and Down on his Own On the Last Weekend To Write a Book About Barbaro Before January 29 How Many Times Can One Get Punched in the Face and Still Continue On this Dark Sunday Even the Last Morning Most of the Time he was Happy Beyond Pain: Barbaro’s Death We Don’t Choose, it Chooses Us On That Day Hearing the News On the Night of Barbaro’s Death Others on the Last Night Think of For Dr Richardson, Those Other Mornings On the Second Day After Barbaro’s Death The Nights After Some Scrolled Blogs like They did Every Day, as if the Death Could Not be Real A Horse can Never Tell You his Dreams Someone Says Some Horses The Sad Songs Haunt the Longest: Beyond Brokenness Weeks After the Eclipse Awards As the Forced Wild Plum Opens Barbaro is No Longer in his Stall in New Bolton Watching Barbaro’s Siblings Days Before What Would Have Been Barbaro’s Fourth Birthday Then, Finally, the Twin Spires Looking at Barbaro’s Full Brother Barbaro’s Birth Stall, Empty Body by Da Vinci In the End, Barbaro Eclipsed All the Others To Hold On From the Author