Jonathan Stolzenberg
I was ten,
I wanted an egg salad sandwich in the cafeteria, wanted
to see Pablo’s funny goat in the courtyard.
No.
The horse:
black lines scratched on a world of white exposed
its great thick neck, head turned up to empty air.
Dagger-toothed mouth screamed,
balled buccal muscles strained from lifting its railed chest and back
to legs that might run to sweet grazing.
I moved from sketch to sketch to painting—
Screaming people,
Broken buildings and impossible and there above the horse,
A naked light bulb—pupil of an eye.
I stood there.
Horse took me, took all I was, expanded to fill the room,
rode me.
We two became chimera in a world of black and gray,
white spaces shined,
offered peace but no entrance.
I stood there. I stand here,
this memory stretches like metal heated under pressure,
frozen, ready to fissure.
The horse riding,
still riding me.