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