after Philip Larkin

Is all I’ve wanted past wanting

since I was six and delirious with fever,

an infinitive forged from a night

when giant ladybugs with toothpick

antennae patrolled my wicker nightstand.

Yes, I’ve been with horses since,

travelled illegally with them in trailers,

known certain landscapes only framed

by alert ears, and with one in particular,

spent whole afternoons with her big jaw

heavy on my shoulder. Still, I hatched

plots to bring a horse to the house, to ride

to school, to pasture one or even three

in the garden, shaded by that decorative

willow, which could have used a purpose.

But there were city bylaws in two languages,

and over the years, a dog, stray cats,

turtles, and many fish. They lived, they died.

It wasn’t the same. Fast-forward, I brought

the baby home in a molded bucket seat, but she

lacked difference, attuned as I was, checking

her twenty-four-seven. Now that she's

grown, I’m reduced to walking city parks

with this corrosive envy of mounted police,

though I’m too old for the ropes test,

wouldn’t know what to do with a gun.

If there’s a second act, let me live

like the racetrack rat in a small room

up the narrow stairs from the stalls,

the horse shifting comfortably below,

browsing and chewing sweet hay.

A single bed with blanket the color

of factory-sweepings will suffice,

each day shaped to the same arc,

because days can only end when

the lock slides free on the stall's

Dutch door, and I lead the horse in,

then muscle the corroded bolt shut.

That’s what days are for: I cannot rest

until the horse comes home.

