HORSE

Tired of writing at the desk

my father refinished over Christmas,

I stared into the walnut-stained

maple with flaws in the grain

floating like clouds, and then

some mischief made me draw,

in that room away from fields

I'd grown to love, the outline

of a horse, my best to date.

I was twelve. Still worse,

impressed with my work, I decided

to carve those curves into the wood.

Inch by inch with a Barlow

knife, I made the figure

stand there forever, every year

more inaccurate and absurd,

though still sleek, in motion.

Sometimes now, if I hurry

to write, the pen racing breakneck

will slip over the small furrow

and into the flank, raised forelock

or the face of a horse

that still stumbles across

a desire as old as cave art

to entice some wild thing

and make beauty local,

to bring something graceful

into the language of home.