Michelle Westmark Wingard, Frost Feathers #8, 2023 (Artist Website)
Cyanotype made using window frost as a negative and pen on rag paper
Courtesy of the artist
In movies when they break the colt
it’s gently done. We want to keep it
mostly wild.
And later when what it’s bred for
breaks it, when what we’ve made of it
no longer
carries what’s desired, at least
we put the horse down when it
cannot run.
And in stories where the ships get stuck,
the stiff air making everything
too heavy to go on
I imagine horse-thick frothing in the waves,
manes matted with a salt that cannot cure.
At first delight then
terror in a groundless surf. Which one of us
threw the other overboard? Who couldn’t
bear the weight of this?
In histories, women cannot keep their heads
above the churn. In birthing and surrendering
we spill. Our waters break.
At least we put the broken horses down —
we look them in their eyes and let them go,
a wild mercy
denied the rest of us. Waves break against
the sides of stale ships, with gentleness that
wounds like water.