Tom &; the Donkey

This I did not witness
but gleaned from the pollen-mad, breathless crowd
after play; but Tom threw a bottle at a donkey
and hit it square in the face.

They say it shied and with sideways steps,
broken-cantered to the far side
of its humpy, spiky, field. Tom cried
and wiped perpetually one eye,

unable to rewind and leave
the bottle on the ground but stuck now
with this ugly and weeping tattoo:
the imprint of the plastic's lazy, falling spite

and the donkey's surprising surprise:
it's stupid, tolerant blink; the drumroll
of it's hooves; the cross upon its back.
He may not have wished for any of this,

(he didn't do it on purpose) but perhaps,
in a moment of visible blood, wanted to
slap the beast hard for being near, for being so bloody real.
Whatever forced his hand,

he shook before me, braying his apologies
and looking, in fabrications, for forgiveness,
wanting to bring it back to this side of the field,
to remove the thistles from its mouth.