inspired by Dean Young’s “Belief in Magic”
How could I now?
Have seen a horse somersault a fence
and both spring back.
Have clung to the rotten apple core.
Seen glazed eyes reflecting the improvised explosive.
Seen heads toppled in sunrise.
Been fed in strange lands.
I believe right now comes from a deck of cards.
All minds are full of words.
Books are minds made real.
We all are books.
Even rocks.
I believe love is a breath of air.
Not just the chick pecking free of the shell.
Maybe instinct, maybe magic at the flash of conception.
Still.
Still
I believe the future is a King of Spades.
The Hall of Souls will take me, but not soon.
An instinct has driven every card cast aside and kept
And yet
and yet that card would make a run.
Because the card kept clashes,
such was the choice in a split second.
Cast aside for its heart.
I breathe.
Still there are more cards
in the deck.
Not this two or that Jack.
Still perhaps three of a kind.
You know the moment when
the new foal, tears open the placenta
mare licking nostrils clear
wet fur coming clean under tongue
impossibly long foreleg moving as
instinct turns into tottering steps towards milk?
That’s how I feel now.
Put Out to Pasture 
When I was about 5 I thought when you died you went into the nearest book. My mother must have been reading us little house in the big woods because that’s the book I made sure was near at night. Just in case.
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What a fabulous idea. I love that. I love how Eudora Wealty was disappointed to find out that cold were written by people. She thought they were natural objects… Like trees or grass
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Great stuff.
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“Books are minds made real.
We all are books.
Even rocks.”
So lovely. All of this poem. ❤
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I’m so glad you like it, thanks!
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