The original poem contains a play-on-words on the word koma, which is the lady’s ‘name’ and also means ‘horse’ or ‘mount’. Sanekata then continues the horse metaphor, by referring euphemisitically to his letter and its contents as makomogusa ‘wild rice’, which was used as horsefeed. In the translation, I’ve attempted to retain some of this wordplay, but with English language imagery.