Swishing Tails of Horses, October
Mine, says the glorious yearling claiming
the path, a rubber runner laid to save her feet.
She will be bought for a sheikh’s stable
in Australia, though she does not, cannot, know
her exact luck, this rosy grey Miss Universe
with mischief in her dark eye, the one eye
I can see as she prances her marketed flesh past
my porch. It may be in time that she will race;
or failing that, will be allowed to breed, or live, or
not. I live by the auction house; I know
the scents and rhythms of the trade by now. How
mistaken she is, believing she owns anything.
