The oldest horse at the edge of the field
that borders a railroad won’t return
to her stall until an old patriarch who
rode her for two decades takes the reins
himself, speaking to her in soft Romani.
Some beasts conceal fear better than others.
The last time he fetched this one, he feared
she knew somehow he’d tried to sell her.
He failed to get the price sought, so returned
her to fields where she paws the wildflowers.
In the lateness of the day in the makeshift
courtyard of an encampment, the old
man watches ravens plummet between
rows of hickory and oak trees, cawing
angrily, as if Elijah refused their bread.
As he descends the field now, he fades
for a moment into the shadows of trees,
holding his hat against the rising wind.
The sun inches westward beyond a shoal
of storms as his wife emerges from the house.
She steadies a chipped decanter that holds
fistfuls of daisies picked from the field
ravens now halo between the tridents
of distant lightning, a sky under which
horses, like dark fire, are circling.
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