Horse Dreams: A Broken-In Villanelle By Ann Stewart McBee

Horse Dreams: A Broken-In Villanelle

A wild and aimless sprinting follows the burst of a gun
Apple sweet and cinnamon heat when the race is (never) over
Beware the salty lump at war with the forceful tongue

Corrals encircled in alfalfa fields growing fat with sun
Knees and ankles become speed as darkness turns to clover
Beware the soft and salty lump against the forceful tongue

Copenhagen and Marengo survived Waterloo hollering come
I saw my shining copper hide on a cave wall in hematite and ochre
Engaged in wild and aimless sprinting after the bursting gun

The soft and salty lump gives in to the forceful tongue
Unbridled but whipped and saddled by a sad(istic) lover 
Timothy and bluegrass reach up to clouds in their breakneck run

Inside this long-lashed, velvet body the prairie spreads open
In the coffins of his pupils a dark and dangerous sprite hovers
A wild and aimless sprinting and a silent brutal gun

Ropes dissolve into barley mush at the sound of thunder 
Between my legs, find a West that never could be won
A soft and salty lump upon a bursting tongue
Lightning gallops wildly, but for the tyranny of a gun

Ann Stewart McBee was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She obtained her PhD in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She has published fiction and poetry in Ellipsis, Untamed Ink, The Pinch, and Citron Review among others. Her short story collection titled How Rabbit Went Down and other Mishaps is available from Hoot-n-Waddle press. She teaches English at Des Moines Area Community College, and lives outside Des Moines, Iowa. The limited use of her hands due to Rheumatoid Arthritis does not prevent her from writing the same way that living with air pollution does not prevent one from breathing.