Untitled Horse Story
Sometimes, horses for sale on the street
are loosely tethered to parking meters
and, once, I had just enough twenty-dollar bills in my pants
to untie one and lead it nearly home.
Horses don’t follow money, silly, but they do,
curious enough, follow jelly doughnuts.
The salesman said so. And the whole experience
could have been the happiest day of my life,
doughnut and horse in hand,
until I thought of you and your ken doll head
turning side-to-side in a manner
that would only mean one thing and it is
the opposite of Yes, my love, well done.
So, I, who have learned a thing or two
about premonitions,
reparked the pony
and moseyed on home.
We can only hope for good days now that
the great black death is behind us.
Each month a contemporary poet presents three poems and one personal essay in which food is consumed, passed over, or reckoned with. Nikki is our poet for March, 2014.
Nikki Burst is a writer and food blogger living in New York City. Her work can be found at Endive Civilization, Nerve.com, The Greenpoint Gazette, and Birdsong.
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