Always I chose the same one-- impaled
like the others, by the gleaming
brass pole that fed through its mouth,
up its sinuses, up and down it lifted
me in the direction of the roof which
sat in the shape of a gold hershey's kiss
over my head. Covered in jewels I found
its colors well and equally distributed--
painted like a sun setting over saddle
and bridle on a summer day in Kentucky. Who doesnt
find beauty there, in a white horse
whose eyes never waver. But glossy, I'd probe my
fingers over them, finger-nail the
painted pupil and find also sadness in the shelacked glaze--lifeless
as
its body lifted me in enslaved, slow
motion grace. I rubbed my hands down
its hard mane in the only externalized
evidence of what I imagined to be, but could not yet name,
our mutual brokenness.
Always I chose the same horse, would
wait for its back
to become weightless.When the carousel
would ring out like a school bell, I'd dash
to her before any other pink'ed
girl-child would. With all might I'd fling a leg
high over its back to seat myself on
its finger-smoothedness. I was lonely./I was loyal
to an inaminate thing. I was already
personifying and attached
to this horse I never named. I didnt
know I'd grow up to wonder which Id rather be:
a riding writer or a writing rider,
that either way I'd like the sound of the comparison,
the mere assonance would be enough to
light me up inside. But back then, it was different,
something sad in my chest was going in
slow circles, rising into the air, suspended
as a girl inside a memory would always
be.
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