Mother-Daughter Series
We have never made jam.
The complicity of sugar and heat -
but we have heaved a horse
off the earth - preserved gold.
Getting your old yellow mare
back on her feet after
her rotten teeth had been removed.
The anesthesia pulled
through her blood like taffy.
We shouldered all our hopes
and determination
that she would shuffle again
through the purpled alfalfa.
That you would ride her again,
her head tossing,
defying her ancient bones
breathing the same air
as the smoky new colt.
Twice she folded
back to the ground,
and we sweated and held back
our wails of defeat, did not hunch.
We yelled at her -
(you had told me never
to yell around the horses)
we crawled almost under her -
our feet slipped on the lawn.
Finally, with one last effort,
we became human pillars -
and grass-stained, panting,
the three of us stood still
under the summer sun.
~
(partly in response to Kumin's "Making the Jam Without You.")
Title suggestions??
The complicity of sugar and heat -
but we have heaved a horse
off the earth - preserved gold.
Getting your old yellow mare
back on her feet after
her rotten teeth had been removed.
The anesthesia pulled
through her blood like taffy.
We shouldered all our hopes
and determination
that she would shuffle again
through the purpled alfalfa.
That you would ride her again,
her head tossing,
defying her ancient bones
breathing the same air
as the smoky new colt.
Twice she folded
back to the ground,
and we sweated and held back
our wails of defeat, did not hunch.
We yelled at her -
(you had told me never
to yell around the horses)
we crawled almost under her -
our feet slipped on the lawn.
Finally, with one last effort,
we became human pillars -
and grass-stained, panting,
the three of us stood still
under the summer sun.
~
(partly in response to Kumin's "Making the Jam Without You.")
Title suggestions??