DREAM: BAY FOAL
for Roz

I was given a beauty
wide sweet head
and I rubbed her right between the eyes.
She pressed hard
against my palm. She adored
me. Soft gray eyelids, nostrils
of the same smokey flesh.
Velvet mouth and nose
whiskers.

She curled, all legs, in my lap
her hooves held high
in the air    dark horn
tips    from the rippling basket
of limbs she formed
in my arms: A love.

The muscles in her flanks
liquid as I stroked
and rubbed her down.
Her new bones turned easy
muscles gliding between
my fingers, almost fingers themselves,
the deep pleasure pushing back
the chords of power
under her beautiful brown
skin. This cannot keep
up   I thought   the first cold
to enter the dream.

Full gaze.
She turned her muscled neck
thick shiny chestnut
then nibbled    sucking, pulling
on all my fingers
in twos and threes.

To think I almost gave
the foal away
to play with a braid
of wind and cold
and doubt.