There are no horses here

Erin Bedford

Where did you run

after I smoothed your flank
and whispered in your velvet ear
Gwan’go
 
Wait
Hang on
 
If you’re a steed in this one
I shouldn’t leave out that other lovely
that pretty palomino
or the saddle laid over the fence
and me at the gate
 
Alright
that didn’t happen
There are no horses here
only
 
this memory-gallop
whipped on by the report from Pompeii about a discovery
under layers of hardened ash
a mare’s skeleton 
a harness
inside the outline of a horse
 
How do you hold the shape of longgone beauty?
 
With an injection of plaster
But also
with stories about that last night in the stable
 
Maybe that’s what I’m doing too
plumping a husk with poems so it won’t collapse
because there are no horses here
only this empty space
only bones
and a harness
 
They were getting her ready to run
 
 
Erin Bedford’s work is published in William Patterson University's Map Literary, Flash Fiction Magazine and The Temz Review. She attended and won a Certificate of Distinction for her novel Fathom Lines from the Humber School for Writers. Currently, she is acting as shill for her second novel, Illumining, and has just completed a manuscript of poetry. Follow her to find out more @ErinLBedford