muscle bunched, a boulder

of power bulging beneath sunhot skin.

Horse sees

the world nearly 360 degrees

through the largest eyes of any land mammal,

holds the history of love

and wounds

in her wide sight,

piercing our cerebral fear.

At full gallop, horse breathes shallow, the only

being who can run beyond oxygen,

miles before dropping of a burst heart.

Horse completes any landscape, tossing

beauty to the sky, mane and lush tail

tangling wild as she four steps

a waltz around her rearing mate.

Give me the huff of a thoroughbred, black

legs pumping through loose sod, hackles

collapsing the far track’s curve, ears

tucked back to her own lunging heartbeat,

dawn fog,

smelling of clover and sawdust, the steady chuff

of thunder hooves thudding into earth’s flesh

the sexual joy of speed, flexed shoulders

and thighs gleaming sweat, sweat,

sweat to please

the slight-boned rider clamped to her back.

Or a mustang galloping over lupine to a sandstone ridge

where he bucks, kicks thin air,

jerks his head clear of biting flies, the echo

of his stampede beating bedrock and dust

and dust lodging in his heaving lungs,

unsaddled by his lust.

He leads

his harem along cliff’s edge, past

a cougar den to sweet grass lining a creek.

Alone in high country after my sister died,

no longer able to breathe,

I stood at an unraveling barbwire fence

and watched a herd of quarter horses race straight at me,

eight horses outweighing me by thousands of pounds.

I did not leap away or scream. Go ahead,

I said,

Go ahead.

Their hooves, that could easily have split my ribcage

and skull, came to a stop inches away.

The mares stretched their necks

and sniffed me with nostrils soft as Chinese silk.

Feeding them grass, I scratched

the long bones of their faces

leaning into my jaw, my unbroken teeth.

Even the yearlings were careful not to bruise

my sandaled feet. Their unbearable

gentle muzzles broke

through the ulcerated curtain of long grief.

We’d known each other all our years.

Shooing flies from their eyes, I whispered

prayers in ears flicking against my cheeks

knew then gratitude with no expectation, love

pungent as rain

rivering gigantic flanks

that turned and sauntered into dusk dissolving the trees.