I was named for the gypsy woman
who came a-knocking at my mother’s door
the night before my birth – the same night
a fire-stallion held Mother with human arms and
made love to her in her dreams - a night
where she was still free to taste the rain and the wind
ii.
Gazing at me as though I have all the answers,
the wind crosses the yard, heavy with pollen,
scales the window and laughs as I slip my arm
around the sleeping piebald horse
There is sanctity here, and grace -
it flows with slender resilience
cradling the sky with a tenderness, dispensing
the morning light in thin measures –
crimson, green and gold
iii.
Bareback, his feathered feet
beating a tattoo on the hard, dry ground
she feels through her worn jeans
the heat of his body, white patches
cooler than the black, the bunched shoulder muscles
rippling and stretching beneath her
Like angel wings, her pelvis vaults,
barely surfacing in the smooth tautology of her hips -
a girl, a real girl – her mother gone not quite a year
feels the syllables of the horse
moving under her like a river
Balanced and easy, the long braid of her hair
falling against her back, a cool
rush of air on her face, the horse pulling
keen and strong – big and powerful
knowing that you never fight a horse,
did not pit your strength against his
iv.
Spanish gold, forged in sun and orgasms,
her face serious in the first cobalt taste of June
her touch a sizzling cellular bolt racing like foxfire
through their joint nervous systems
carrying their sorrows to the waiting road, where
dusty cowslips and scarlet poppies,
cransesbill and pink and white dog roses -
fight for purchase amongst the hogweed
searching for bee orchids and hound’s tongue
which her mother had taught her to use –
her dead mother who had never cared about school,
laughing and saying it had never done her no good
v.
Later, in the vale, they stand soul-naked in mist
horse and girl alone in the neo-silence
down where the hay has already been cut
waiting to be turned to dry in the sun
and where the brown roe deer shelter
in the thick overgrown copses, a pair of
sparrow hawks wheel, in the high blue sky
with mournful cries echoing
in the wild summer hush…
The Fisher Princess
©crisstiena
Honorable mention
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