Blue HorsesAuthor(s): Walter GriffinSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Fall, 2004), p. 157Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20151875 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 23:06

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Iowa Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:06:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

WALTER GRIFFIN

Blue Horses

Only the abandoned gate

flung wide open to a cemetery in the dark is the beginning of

my dream. My algebra teacher, Mr. Hawkins, who flunked me in

eighth grade, is the keeper of the dead.

I tell you, I have often wondered in

sweat-soaked sheets what the square root of nothing is, what the birds

I drew in my Blue Horse notebook

meant. Meanwhile, there is no one

at the gate. Not even a crow to

dot the sky, nor wind to move

the hinges or make them creak. Only the muttering of the shades by my bed in the motel room, my heart in

their rolled up flapping at the gate where only the pardoned enter.

157

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:06:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions