Echoes

Somewhere in Arizona, on a road
I never meant to be on, in someone's
front yard a chestnut horse stands
silent guard over a white horse,
prone and stiffening.  On a road,
with no choice but to turn around,
I witness again that horse bowing
over his companion:  his eyes
watching her; his warm nostrils
sniffing an unfamiliar smell from her.
Nudging her, he waits for a neigh,
a snort, a whine, a nicker: movement.
Somewhere in Arizona, the dry
sanded flatness, lizards, roads
of oil-lint, caked tumbleweed
skeletons, my musty throat--
and horses--convince me:  I
have been traveling alone long
enough on the edge of echoes.

by Victoria Elizabeth