cold horse

cold horse

“but how do i know what she needs? maybe simply

to spin herself a house within a house, on her own terms

in cold, in silence” –adrienne rich

being born,

the bitterness of one winter

has forgotten how to

freeze.  i want

the weight of this past year to catch

up with the race. sprinting,

like an emotional genius, it is almost

six months. no

finish line, many fences,

multiple leaps.

image popping into a head.

you, and distant.

a small blue box with a small blue lid.

the view gets elbowed into periphery.

shrinking.

an era. not an error.

and all gone.

bitterness won't always translate

into sepia. face it, there is wistful, complicated,

lost, loved, blankets.  a pasture.

that thin veneer thickens to a pane

of glass. the threads braid themselves

into the mane of my best horse,

all for show.  you never knew me in my

power or in my poems. these

limbs and symbols, these full

exhalations. you were sighing,

i was working, you were working,

and there i went, over-

committed, stressed, saddled. 

sometimes carrots,

sometimes apples.

weight gathered under eyes

with blinders, metal bit 

between teeth, roaring 

in ears.  muck.  sweat.

you. i'm not even thinking of.

i'm not.

even.

this is a house and

it is thinking of

me, built of me.

cobwebs and haylofts.

safe, like fur,

like frozen.

february 2012