A girl and a horse, a horse and a girl,
a single animal in form and desire,
blazed up the curving path
at the height of the afternoon
to the island’s summit
for a victory smile over the entire ocean
The girl’s triumphant visage there is what remains
On foot she exploded into a girl who screamed
at the sight of a needle in a doctor’s office;
a girl unwilling to look at herself in the mirror;
a striking young woman hiding fearful
in an apartment in a safe neighborhood
of friendly neighbors;
clumsy in her thrift store clothes,
a spiller of drinks and nail polish,
a tripper, out of sync, a crazy lady
on a bike trailed by a steak
of flying purple hair
shooting through screeching traffic;
foul-mouthed in public and her poetry;
a seer into the fraud of the world
And so she left it, wildly, not on a horse,
but riding a seizure on a strange bed
in a motel room late at night
after a trip-and-fall in the dark
The stallion of her schizophrenia galloped on
stirring dust clouds under watercolor skies
Last spotted on the hook of a far hill