Black & White: A Zebra’s View
by Cynthia Gallaher

They say I look so 
much like a horse, 
but historically, technically, 
the horse looks like me, 
she’s the one more thick and plain, 
and aside from the occasional dapple, 
without a real flourish. 

Her hooves, earthbound, 
rooted to the soil, galloping, 
huge legs beat prairies 
into clouds that dirty her back. 
Yoked to a plow, she's forced 
to push over clods 
and boulders in fields. 
Everywhere she goes, her looks 
are imported, 
a refugee from OPEC nations. 

On my side of the world, 
without training, wagers, or odds, 
my close-cropped fur fits tightly 
as a lycra swimsuit, 
I streak like the Sunday paper 
off the presses, 
all you can make out 
is my backside 
as I quickly race away. 

My Olympic leaps break records 
over brush, narrow streams, and crags, 
never stumbling, 
I raise dust tornadoes 
around my hooves 
and rise completely off ground. 

Some say, even in death 
our kind goes for the dramatic, 
only the lion can overtake us, 
or the rare warrior, 
who fling our coats 
toward the acacia tress, 
in ribbons of day, ribbons of night.