“Via” by Amy Lawless

It’s been a year since that goddamned horse died
and I have yet to pick up the pieces.
It brought me water on down that road.
It took the tarp with buck’d teeth and made a tent

by lifting it over the low branches of a nearby tree.
It’s been a year since that goddamned horse died
and I’ve used all the lessons he taught me
during our time together braving the elements.

My right arm has burned off from the sun’s radiation
and I can no longer call out at night in pain like I used to.
It’s been a year since that goddamned horse died
from swallowing the last of the Brita filters.

And even if having clean water did nothing
it made me feel safe, like we were able to improve our
own condition. It’s been a year since that goddamned
horse died. Triple crown I lost my body, mind, and soul.

Amy Lawless’s first book of poems, , was published by Black Maze Books in 2008. Her poems have recently appeared in Sub-Lit, Scapegoat Review, The Paramanu Pentaquark,Forklift, Ohio, Portable Boog Reader 3, Agriculture Reader, Radioactive Moat, Pax Americana, Sink Review, and Barrow Street. Lawless holds a degree in journalism from Boston University and an MFA in poetry from The New School. She  teaches at John Jay College, and lives in Brooklyn. For more about Amy, check out her blog, .

Tagged as: poem of the week