I’ve known you for a year now

white freckled horse with your limpet mane.

For a year you have been standing there by the fence–

maybe an eternity by that fence,

self-cornered near the barbed filament

always facing the mountains.

Sometimes you shift, I’ve noted;

never subject to the wind.

Yes,

sometimes you shift

and I’d like to know

what moves you to amend your bearing?

To look up without raising those eyes?

Once, I saw you standing that constant way

cool and still in the loafing shed

just because it’s there;

your head still low,

but not for sadness.

And when I pass you on foot

it is the same

save that you lean into me

as if we shared a secret.

Do they know what they have

the proprietors I never see–

the ones who keep your ribs from jutting

and your field from turning grey?

Do they know that there are words in your unsettling composure;

whispers from a tranquility millions seek to match;

wisdom from watching the encoded purpose of colonies colonizing?

Tell me

quiet, unmoving horse:

are they the lives of absented people

scattered about your cerise skin?

He’s right,
it is windy,
but there are no tornadoes.
So when he comes down the stairs with his flashlight
both scared and trying to save me
we consider the dark clouds and determine them benign.
I think about how much taller he is now
than this morning
and so he sleeps next to me;
Miller Moths and their soft thuds building in the swirl of the fan above.
He surprises me with his sticky, limp hand–
the upward palm and curled fingertips which against my better judgement
he neglected to wash just a few hours or a lifetime ago.
And who am I kidding?
The prince of campouts and sprinklers and three or four muddied outfits per day
breathes so perfectly.

There is no better judgement.

I was raised to hold a gun the right way

and use it

and to eat what I killed.

But I turned off the pot before it sang to a boil,

kept the blender on low so as not to startle;

made the children whisper.

I turned up the towel to stare at you;

dropped the long straw with some earthy concoction

towards your gaping, skyward beak

equally mad at, and in awe of your mother

for her two day absence and her ability to get you this far.

I am sorry and not so sorry for how they circled around you

on the ground as you tried but couldn’t take flight,

and I am sorry but not sorry for the way they hover still

over your shaky torso and wet down

(resulting from the insecure grip of the cat’s mouth).

The cat—who already wolfed down a mouse for supper

perhaps thinking we didn’t notice,

the cat—who once we brought home in the same manner;

cradled in a warm blanket-nest with her tiny mouth receiving temperate drops of milk

from the well-intentioned hoverers…

and when the mower uncovers a den of mice

or a burrowing snake,

when the birds hit the window

or a starling takes flight because we cupped it in our fanatical hands,

I consider the notion

that a rifle in one hand

and a stranded sparrow in the other,

are allowed to reconcile.

KarenHansonPercy

the dog dug up the roses I planted four weeks ago
he dug them up thrice
and scattered their shredded stems around the exactitude of the holes I dug
and when I stuck them back into the ground
I pricked my fingers three times for each tetchy vine I rooted
and forgot to water them for as many days
then the weatherman predicted a freeze
and of course it snowed
and then it froze more nights than the perforations on my fingers

yet today they bloom–
spirited green and bordered red
spreading their fast arms into the garden bed
reaching for the legs of the pergola
as if forgetting their birth and the days that followed

and seeing them now
I cannot help but know
how much like parenting it is
to plant a hearty rose

–KarenHansonPercy