Ode to the Saratoga Springs Racetrack

The track attracts women with hats

and men in flamingo pantsuits.

Each one swears to God they dress the gaudiest.

Everything sprinkles green.

Horses have their own paths.

A few hundred have died here,

but no one remembers the collapses,

just the traipsing past the finish line.

Some women probably bet their money

based on ribbons, or the color of bows,

or a mathematical equation that measures

how fast the horses’ hooves go per meter

multiplied by their number of eyelashes.

Either way, their husbands underestimate them.

The heat swells in the spectators’ chests

but they are faintless. Their bodies rise

like tides when their horses circle towards them,

and they draw their binoculars from their pockets

like handguns. They don’t wish they were cowboys.

They don’t feel shame. They dream of money

and wake covered in paper.