Rich Strike by Ed Ruzicka

Rich Strike
—for Nancy Von-Brock

Mine eyes deceived me, mine.
I thought that was the 2 horse
that came flashing forward,
legs like pistons firing three
times for each two the other
horses’ struck. I was, we were,
after all, before all, drunko, drunkas,
drunkat, drunkamus, drukatis, drunkant
on Nancy Von’s uncle’s recipe
handed down for generations
from Todd County, Kentuck—
the recipe that calls for bourbon,
mint, bourbon, sugar, bourbon,
shivers of ice, bourbon, mint, bourbon.

I look closer, me, with zero,
looped-out eyes, me. It’s number 21.
No way. Who the frog is this?
What is that glorious bay so lit up on
that he goes a-nipping at the stable horse’s
long-cabled neck? Is this irritation,
thrill, anxiety or high-jinx?

What a stamp, what a finish, what a period
at the end of a drunko, drunkamus day.
All those tons of top-dollar horse flesh
done in, limp & ragged without riches,
succumb to the furious thunder of nobody
who rode, do-dah-day, into Derby history.
Who bet the bay, Mattress Mack? Who bet the bay?

Oh my God, that indelible sable-dark stallion
whose eyes mine eyes fell into
like I was set to pull a parachute cord
in a night-wind tumble, drifted back to Show

and I can feel the wind that jockeys with skin
as taut and electric as their mount’s hides
feel as they press into stirrups in the stretch,
thorough-bred’s endless necks stuck out,
tornadoes of dirt flung backwards.
a hundred thousand tickets blow off
in the long, wind of twenty ponies
lathered up and pounding.

by Ed Ruzicka

Editor’s Note: This narrative poem’s repetition and word play rollicks into exhilaration as both the speaker and horse race towards the last line.