Come Back

I can’t see all of any horse at once.

They weave through twilight, in and out of sight,

as the sky drains of color, enters dusk.

The barn’s a bloodstain on an ivory dress,

lost in the skirt, a spiraling red kite.

I can’t see all of any horse at once.

Between us there is only field and dust,

a fence and a shadow-fence. Beside me lightning

splashes the hillside, loosens it so dusk

can wring each soggy evergreen, unlace

pink threads of berries from the shrubs. I wait.

I can’t see all of any horse at once.

The moon has flown, though in its place a husk

clings to the sky. The horses figure-eight

in single file. Through rain-sewn drapes of dusk

I try to count them, climb up on the fence.

Their foreheads shine with pearly stars, ghost-lit.

I can’t see all of any horse at once—

they multiply, and shiver in the dusk.

“Come Back” first appeared in Agni, No. 70, November 2009, and is from The Tulip-Flame (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2014).