With Horse

--Rae Gouirand

In the dream, matter was mine.

The muscle, the teeth, the breath rushing

out of burned throat and through

those teeth into air, where it became

indistinguishable. On my legs, I raced,

the machinery of my animal syncing

lift and drop between front and back,

the pairs oddly right, as though

I've had them in waking, as though I've

known a horse's run from inside.

But that wasn't the plot. Just

as I knew I was that, just as I could

hold it in my mind at the same time

I could simultaneously express

I was born to move like this,

I felt concrete beneath

my landings, and the approaching

vibration of metal wheels faster

than I could make my mind

my legs, and those, those red roads

under me, those fine bones under

the balance of my animal, entered

the field of what could undo them,

were subject to what could undo them ,

and their running turned—and

there was my heart, racing for

the red cave where I had lived,

no longer a place I could rest

my word for myself. There are

two ways a horse can run: from

accord, and from will. One is

the way a living thing runs.