Poem for a Dying Horse

All along the creek
                  flecks of gold                                                                mirror the cold water


                                    silt, overalls, bulls, roots


growing under the old white barn
                  where the dying colt, his tail caught in thistles
                                    bleats out through a dark mouth


The barn wood smells of dirt when her face is pressed into the hayloft’s floor.  Her pond must be full of ripples.  Her hair must be in the ground.  A quick kick from the small horse 

 
                                                                      a swift lift-off from the hand that’s inside her shirt

pounding the backs of buttons & buttercup sleeves. 


The kindness of gasoline
                  near her mouth                                     the darkest side of bones
                              

                                    moths, straw, dust, boots


kicking under her young white legs
                  where there are rare hands, alcohol                     
 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     a hymn of insects

by Erin J. Mullikin

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Erin J. Mullikin is the author of the chapbook, Strategies for the Bromidic (dancing girl press), and her poems and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in magazines such as Coldfront, BlazeVOX, GlitterPony, Spork, Birdfeast, Beecher's, and inter|rupture. She is the editor-in-chief for Salt Hill Journal and a founding editor for the online poetry journal, NightBlock, and the small literary press, Midnight City Books.