With Horse

Rae Gouirand

In the dream, matter was mine.The muscle, the teeth, the breath rushingout of burned throat and throughthose teeth into air, where it becameindistinguishable. On my legs, I raced,the machinery of my animal syncinglift and drop between front and back,the pairs oddly right, as thoughI’ve had them in waking, as though I’veknown a horse’s run from inside.But that wasn’t the plot. Justas I knew I was that, just as I couldhold it in my mind at the same timeI could simultaneously expressI was born to move like this,I felt concrete beneathmy landings, and the approachingvibration of metal wheels fasterthan I could make my mindmy legs, and those, those red roadsunder me, those fine bones underthe balance of my animal, enteredthe field of what could undo them,were subject to what could undo them ,and their running turned—andthere was my heart, racing forthe red cave where I had lived,no longer a place I could restmy word for myself. There aretwo ways a horse can run: fromaccord, and from will. One isthe way a living thing runs.

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Rae Gouirand is the author of eight titles of poetry and nonfiction, including Glass is Glass Water is Water (Spork Press, 2018) and the forthcoming book-length poem The Velvet Book (Cornerstone Press, spring 2024). She leads several long-running independent workshops in northern California and online, including the cross-genre workshop Scribe Lab, and lectures in the Department of English at UC-Davis. / raegouirand.com

Sunnyvale, California

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