Abbey
by Meaghan McDonald
“I knew her as a horse splashed seafoam white
Atop the wine-dark sea of her body
I knew her as a friend before she carried her hundred children
upon her broad back.”
Dapples and chestnuts
and the hearty patchwork of the paint
Loop around a white-fenced ring
kicking up shredded tires and dirt beneath their heels,
while the birds cluck and kiss and call to them from the darkening sky.
A bracelet around my wrist tells me to breathe,
and I tangle my fingers in her black-and-white mane.
I hold her and not my breath as we fly over the crossbar—
I still hit the ground.
Aphrodite rises from the seafoam of her creator’s semen and she is beautiful—
She is beautiful and she has emerged fully formed from nothing more than a dream...
I knew her.
I knew her as a horse splashed seafoam white
Atop the wine-dark sea of her body
I knew her as a friend before she carried her hundred children
upon her broad back.
My friend Aphrodite.
I want her to live forever
I want to wax poetic on her heart,
thundering deep within the barrel of her chest
A truer rhythm than my own
A horse does not know evil
though they may look it in the eye
From the war of the West to the war between a plow
and the stony Massachusetts soil
There is innocence in kindness,
In the soul residing behind glass eyes beer bottle brown
I do not have the heart of a horse—
I do not have the same blood running through my veins
I can only love, weak in my way,
And pray you feel it embrace you
A thousand miles away.
Meaghan (they/them) spends their days briefing cases and researching niche legal issues, but finds a certain freedom in poetry and prose. In the space they carved out for creativity, they became fond of fantasy. This love for the fantastical has inspired them throughout their life, and carries their writing as constant as a heartbeat.
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