KATHLEEN JONES

APPLEBY HORSE FAIR

They wake me early, cantering
along the river-bank below my window;
testy stallions and barrel-bellied mares
with soft mouths and feathered shins,
bare-backed by Irish gypsies
over for the Fair.
Later I watch the pure-bred
horses harnessed in sulkies
jouncing across the grass,
arching their necks and lifting
their polished hooves like gods
from old mythologies.
In my house their ancestors
gallop under the floor.
Five horses heads; ivory shells
of thin bone, blank sockets rearing
up at me out of another time.
Shaman's stallions, carrying souls
to heaven. Five white horses:
one to protect each corner
of the house, one more
to bring fertility, sacrificed
at the fall of the year.
Their shoes are above the door.
Their manes and tails pack the space
between my floor boards —
curl in the plastered wall.
Outside I watch them turn and trot,
hock deep in foaming water,
all this ancient intelligence
"broken to harness" under the whip —
flesh and sinew sold on a hand-clap.
At night I hear their mythic hooves
beating on wood; their snorting breath.