We used to braid our horse.
Chipped fingernails crossing the synthetic strands, one over the other,
sometimes we’d lift the muzzle to our mouths and kiss it. For practice. I used to bend until
my whole spine ran a racetrack in reflection. Memorable, that line down the center.
How one day he would hold me against a tree in the Scottish forest. Lush and dark,
the bark splitting. Sound of little sprites rubbing their wings together. Cicadas yearning
in the treetops. Afterwards, pools on the leaves and weak knees. At sixteen I pray to stun the way heat does an open field.
I plead the mirror: I will be an electric eel