Miracle: The True Story of a Horse
(New Mexico, December 2008)
by Lauren Camp

This poem originated from an unforgivable news story the author came
across about a horse in New Mexico that had been shot and left for dead.
We hope this poem will touch the readers of Centaur Magazine.

Tired old horse with her threadbare life
                Shot six times in her beautiful head
                                In her chestnut face

 The gun exploding for two miles
                Of long hoof prints in the desert
                                And the velvet horse looking

 For children where are the children
                To tend her ears? 
                                She is used to speed smart girl

 This old polo pony who jousted with peril
                Then retired to lifting children
                                With a trot a canter

 Such perfect gait she ambled
                Over sticks and dirt
                                The muscles of her barrel taut

 But now her eye her watery eye
                She can’t see right
                                The ground keeps waving

 Up and down as she runs
                Carefully carrying
                                Her broken head

 And in it the wind sounds different
                Louder as she moves
                                Across the dimming plain

 This hole in her sight is evidence
                A man burned through her
                                With hard dark noise with bullets

 Then faded back to his own sunset
                Unsorrowed and unnoticed
                                Her muscles contract and flex

 Her splendid body she is running
                Pulling the sharpened blade
                                Of pain into the dusted sky

Up to a lonely house
                Nudging her crest against the door
                                Her neck curving down

 Easing salt and sweat into wood
                She is knocking
                                Knocking her eyes skitter deep

 She hears her big mouth whinny
                For someone gentle to talk her through
                                Her thousand pains

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