by Grace Butcher

Where have you been--
not to have come for twenty years,
all the horses turned to shadows
waiting for you! Nothing about us
or our way of going would have hurt you,
no matter how fragile you thought
you had become.

See how you are the same
on my back as you always were?
See how your body remembers
these rhythms, these turns and changes?
How your hands speak to my mouth?

We had to be dream horses,
blue with the moon, black against snow
while you were gone. Never real.
We were as lonely as horses in a painting.
Our colors didn't matter.
Black was no more sad than brown.
Spotted was an unfinished puzzle.
My whiteness was irrelevant.

But look, now that you've come
on this gray day, how white I am,
how huge! You had a long climb
to my back, but see now
how glad you are that I'm here.
You didn't know I'd be white,
but in years to come, that's what
you will always tell people:

how white I was, like a dream
rising out of darkness to meet you
as if you'd never been away.
Forgiving you.