Horse girl

formed from bone, sinew, verdigris veins
I was a horse girl because my mother

before me was shyly fleet and flinty hoofed
I loved what my mother loved, so it began

in small ways: toy horses browsed my bedroom
rug, wild and unsaddled, posters on my walls

made my herd, taught me to canter, nicker,
let the long day drape her sunlight across

our backs while we stood nose to tail on long
dusty afternoons, shivering our skin under

a wide sky, or in the cool darkness of the barn
at night, swallows, bats, owls, sweet hay

they showed me how to make thunder when I ran
to rake the miles beneath me, to stand quietly

in a humming midsummer field, head down
lips to grass, to mold a girl’s body into fur, flesh,

mane, firm flanked—in the winter we breathed
clouds, our lungs inhaled the wind and we

mothered the starred sky with our daughters.