Paint Horse

I am the paint horse--
I have high-stepped through a thousand snakes,
mouths open like poisoned prairie flowers;

I have left their heads beneath my hooves,
a row of flat, dull silver dollars
staring at the endless open sky without seeing it.

You have called me,
whether you knew it or not.
You, beneath your buffalo blanket like the moon behind a cloud,
you have drawn me here.

With a circle around my eye,
and a hand print on my flank,
I feel the bones of all who came before us--
yours,
and mine--
beneath this dirt, these roots, this earth in all directions.

I am calling you,
you, the beautiful one I love.
You have pushed the bone shard through the flesh of your slender arm,
and not flinched.
Surely, every ghost will honor this.

I am the paint horse,
waiting;
you are the one I love.
We will not need reins, a saddle,
or anything but our bodies
together like cloud and storm,
across the plains.
________

for Hannaballistic's Transforming Friday challenge at Real Toads. She commands that we write about the prairie and its creatures.