Horse Dream

by Carolyn Scarbrough

 

We are in the middle of our grief when Mom says

I've bought the horses for you and your sister.

None of the three of us know anything of horses

 

or of this scrub brush wilderness of loss.

It's a dream. Neither of us ask

what horses or why horses.

 

The large bodied beasts push against us

and don't do our bidding, the soft wet eyes wide

with something we should know

 

and though we are three adult women

not saying our pain, not asking for anything more

than this unfathomable gift

 

none of us comment on the strange landscape

or even know how we've managed to be

together in it.

 

 

Carolyn Scarbrough has published in Gulf Coast, Poet Lore, Sundog, Tar River Poetry, Conduit, Connecticut River Review, High Desert Journal, Minnesota Review, and The Southeast Review. She has an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars, works as a pediatric ICU nurse, and is the mom to five kids, two dogs and the cat. Basically, she says, she writes despite all the reasons to not write, much like a willful child!