Equestrienne

On a boardwalk in Old San Juan I was drawn
through a glass darkened by dust lined shelves
piled high in a cluttered display, to a carousal tilted
by ancient enamel-stained horses embalmed, affixed
to its stage through decades of negligent disrepair.
One caught my eye & seemed alive somehow
as though beguiled, preserved perhaps in art,
a spirit lost in stasis, say, attached by circumstances
to the past; too alive to stay, too endangered
to depart. From a bankless reservoir of memories
sprang a place I knew, where clover-coifed
grasses grew in unrestrained abundance
& Mustangs ranged in painted vales undiminished
by a vanished paradise, a place to reunite with life,
surviving still, on a cusp of quickly sliding time.

Enchanted by his bold élan, I shed my skin of grief
& climbed astride his midnight hide & entered his
belief. Within the spell a trail began to curve into
a bend & through a lens I saw a way to end
my solitude. We raced in silhouette along torn spikes
of sedge traced in shadows of the shattered sun
& blazed through beams of broom-brush dust,
past blooms of bursting earth we swept a perfumed
path clean with our speed & sent leaves flying overhead.

Through fields of tall white stars we spread Night Jasmine
to the sea & struck high-tide broadside & broached
the waves in sprays of rainbow lights & clinging foam.
Seaweed ribbons trimmed the crown I plaited for the solemn
brow of my dead lover's guide. Our steps were slow
& muffled in the temple of the pines that arched above the hushed
grave site. Silver-edged boughs gathered in a wreath around
crushed shells & age-frayed debris marked the mound I chose
to sleep upon until my bones are bleached to winter white
& the golden cup that holds the stallion myth is lifted
in a tribute to its healing gift, whispering, I am more,
I am more, than just one.