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.