My First Horse ( a Poem)

My horse paws the stable floor,
each strike of his impatient hoof
rings steel and thunder 
through the barn.
His leg is a piston
of an engine with truthful eyes.
A horse cannot lie, unlike
the complicated prayers
I prayed to not want what
I wanted, not be what I was-
A nine-year-old 
in her backyard 
galloping on 
an invisible horse,
She held the reins,
hollered and whooped
pigtail and mane soared
over an imaginary jump.
What took me so long to 
heed the answer to my
heart’s honest wish?

© 2023 Kristen Skedgell. All rights reserved.