Double

Our horse was haunted, afflicted with a doppelganger

said by the stable hand to portend death.

She could see the moon like an ornament on the dawn,

or the bulge of an apple in my coat pocket,

but not her double dipping its head as if weary from its own mimicry. 

Aunt June said she has to see it, the way we saw owls in the barn rafters.

If she doesn't, it's just foxfire

the devil dancing on a rotten log.

She won't get moon eye from a dream.

All spring and into the summer the double stayed,

unfed, unbidden, inexplicable. 

Rain on the roof sounded like snap beans.

Sun made the ground stream, ghosts rose, bewildered.

An old horse collar fell from its nail

though it never had before.

After that, we stopped seeing the double, and Aunt June said 

that's the way of things, girl,

but it gave me a peculiar feeling, 

like hearing a handsome boy tell a bald-faced lie.

______________

for Sunday Muse #147.

Pharos

There has been terror, walls of water, nightmare monsters!
Our hands around splintered oars.
Our hands around twisting lines in desperate storms.
Our hands around our bodies in the freezing nights.
Our hands around each other's throats in frenzies of despair.

There has been light, safe haven, mighty walls!
Light from a sturdy tower.
Light revealing gray-white gulls.
Light in our captain's steady eye.
Light at dawn, on a rocky shore.

Strange, the solid ground our legs shift upon.
Strange, the women bringing children to the docks, who call.
Strange, the endless streets, the many doors, odors, sounds.
Strange, the urge to sail again, to leave this tranquil harbor.

No wonder we stagger in the street, thought mad by both priest and whore.
We are mad.
Only the swell and fall of the sea can receive our pitching souls.
_______

for camera FLASH! at Real Toads.

"Pharos" image created and provided by the mystic and magnetic Kerry O'Connor.