By DANIELLE LATTUGA
Smoke and I are often less than poetry on six feet. We’re more like a blob of bubble gum stuck to someone’s shoe. Sometimes the poetry comes later, when my body is not beat down, and that horse is not stubbornly pushing his hot breath into my face.
Hard Ground
Quiet
Still in your soles
Lean
Move without pushing
Hard ground
For grace still rising
Dust and sun
Questions left to dry
Caked like earth
In knots
And ramblings
Water broken by hoof
I knew you
Pebbles peppered my skin
You turned
Dropped your gaze
Square against thought
Your scent
Some clue
To the world unfettered
Tailbone to spine
Resonant
In memory
The echo of
A boom
Heard after truth
Long faded
We weren’t meant
For some game
Of belonging
Head high
You give me one eye
Now
I ask for two
Please leave comments below, or check out Danielle’s other posts at the Horse Around, Missoula blog home page.
Click here to see all of the Horse Around Missoula archives.
*****************
Danielle Lattuga is a novice horsewoman, frequently found guilty of confusing hoof beats with heartbeats. She believes that riding and writing are not so different: both part poetry, part sweat. Follow her into Montana’s horse country, and find out if she’s right.