Not a scent so much as a bouquet
of smells, that stable: old wood, horse flesh,
the round sweet buds of manure;
molasses, oats, leather, hay.
In the ancient bushel basket a nest
of twine, now the red taut plunk of it cut
from the bale, as puffed up
out of the flakes comes dust
from the fields a year before,
and a stiff, sleepy bull snake oozes
over the cold floor and into the stall
where the edgy stallion waits for hay.