Daniel Barnum

Equestrian Portrait of an Unknown Noble

On our first date, he showed me the painting
he kept from his ex on the mantle. “Now

it’s a reminder why I left.” A man,
dark hair held back by folds of silk, head set

in classic three-quarter-profile, to show
how his ear drips pearls on the black of his

rigid collar, like a planet’s orbit
strewn with small moons. Frame for the expression

of purposelessness. Some long-dead lesser
prince sat upon a sorrel horse. His dog

trailing close behind, lolling its dumb tongue
in brushstrokes pushing toward impossibly

straight palms that thrust us to the vanishing
line of the horizon – a frail white border

between the sky and ocean. Unsigned: done
by a nobody, who likely never

knew the setting the scene depicts outside
of books and travel guides’ imagined knowledge

of lands called colonies, those places
one took as lush yet lifeless, just waiting

there, like a prize. Caught in the pale of his
eyes, I wanted to become the unseen

dust kicked up by hooves, the canter oils
burnt into canvas. To be what lasts.

I needed this man to know my family
had left a kingdom of dreams in the not 

too distant past. “Can I kiss you?” he asked,
hands alighting on my neck and chest. Yes.

He led me toward the bedroom. A high cry
from the street outside ended in my mouth.

---

So Far Afeard
--an erasure from the Prince of Morocco’s complete dialogue in The Merchant of Venice

                      not     my complexion,
The shadow
                   I am                             near


       let us                                           love

                             this aspect
                                                             I swear
 
                                  I would not change 




 
                                            a               prince 

                                                 eyes 
                the heart 

                                                           for prey


               the better
                                                weaker 
                       beaten by his page
And                 blind 

              with grieving.

                                             me 

                     blest or cursed'st among men.


                                                                                 desire

                                                   this 

                  dull lead,


How shall I know 



                      the inscriptions 
What says 
                                                              hazard 
                                                         hazard 
                                                           hazard 
           in hope 
                       stoops 

                                                                   hue

                                                                      Morocco,
                                                       even 

If thou be'st 

                       so far 
                   afeard 






What if I stray'd      further, 
                                          saying 

                                    all the world desires 

To kiss this                                  breathing 
                            desert
                                                                 now
       princes 
                                         whose ambitious 

                                     spirits                  come,
     o'er 



                 cerecloth 


     sin
                  worse than                                   England
A coin that bears the figure of 



Lies         . 



   hell 
                                            whose empty 
                                  scroll  I'll read 

          have you heard 
          a man                            sold 
      my
Gilded tombs 
                          as
                         



                                               welcome
                           .

---