Nothing like a horse

The horses are here again, and they run and run and run. They move so far so fast that we’re left only with the idea of the shape our mouths makes when we whisper flank and leap and leave. Long and lean and pewter, they take form, become something other. A word to lean on. A word to be the wind in your sails. A word to make you forget what came before. These horses have no, could never have, anything like a rider. They are free in the way that only somewhere we could never name is free. They are so free they don’t even need a word for it.

In their wake, we dream of water, because this dream is always of water. The moisture of it. The cloyingness. If there was anything else to drink, we would happily forget how the rain is made and never again believe in the colour blue. If the water wasn’t all there is, but of course, there is no outside to this place where the horses run and leave us tasting air. There is only this. The horses run and I think of sighs that get lost in waves and the ways that clouds gather over hurts and how the ocean is always beneath us. I think of her.

Let’s fall asleep singing about the smell of grass in October. Let’s say we’re sorry so many times it soars. Let’s make it brand new and colour it over with barbs again and again and again. Let’s do anything at all.

Horses invented breathing, but they keep it secret. They found a way to keep going even when there is only sand and skin is something to wear like a home. They soar, and they never, never, find a word for the way they could never have anything like a rider.

She is long and lean, and pewter is a word she mouths until it gleams and gulps at the air that is nothing like water. She is nothing like a horse. And yet, she is there too, running, running, running.