APPLEBY HORSE FAIR
They wake me early, cantering
along the river-bank below
my window;
testy stallions and barrel-bellied
mares
with soft mouths and feathered
shins,
bare-backed by Irish gypsies
over for the Fair.
Later I watch the pure-bred
horses harnessed in sulkies
jouncing across the grass,
arching their necks and
lifting
their polished hooves like
gods
from old mythologies.
In my house their ancestors
gallop under the floor.
Five horses heads;
ivory shells
of thin bone, blank sockets
rearing
up at me out of another
time.
Shaman's stallions, carrying
souls
to heaven. Five white
horses:
one to protect each corner
of the house, one more
to bring fertility, sacrificed
at the fall of the year.
Their shoes are above the
door.
Their manes and tails pack
the space
between my floor boards
—
curl in the plastered wall.
Outside I watch them turn
and trot,
hock deep in foaming water,
all this ancient intelligence
"broken to harness" under
the whip —
flesh and sinew sold on
a hand-clap.
At night I hear their mythic
hooves
beating on wood; their
snorting breath.
© Kathleen Jones