How Small Pains

So far I'm told her horse kept composing,
 singing to open air
                  as we scrambled
 with the ghosts.

 Yesterday was listing adrift,
      a smoky cause
with no party. I didn't convey that
      sure-over-it stalling mode, didn't

go to meet the air-beasts trawling the sky,
     but I did try to white-it-out again.

to a giddy nothing.

     I could be a lost plane in my Amelia browns,
blown clear and spun.

     Okay, a few trinkets
are worth stealing,
     but only if
I abandon the toy switchblade and listen

     to the proud prance of her friend, its
nicker-song and find
                  the breath charm inside.

     These ghosts have a warped sense of fun
and already having been pitchforked
             into the swill. I ask for

             antidotes—dullness and pixie hoods.
 And they whirl, haunt the miscrable,

those spendthrifts.
             Even the quick stumble.

Copyright © 2006 Molly Bendall All rights reserved
from Redivider
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission