Nightmare

The animal burdened
is cribbing on
a dank fence line.
She appears almost
elegant, ewe-necked
but fescue-footed,
when to the ground
& the meat of
her gored hooves
you inevitably look.
A militant horse
might fight & hasten
the breaking of joints,
yet this mare has
no kick. She looms
over lambkill, the moon
of her moon blindness
near opal, peering quietly
as the ring of ringbone.
That sound is her surra,
a ragged, swaybacked
way of telling you
she is still here
despite the stable flies
stuck on her hide
like beads unshaken
by vertigo. If you lean
close, you can hear
the undertone
of the warble fly
nested under skin,
making a whistler
of the riding horse
now so wind-broken
her breath is kept
in exile, heaving
as she mows this yard
in zodiacal light.

Reprinted from Mare’s Nest (Sarabande Books, 2023). Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.