In her book, my friend Elizabeth comes clean on the ubiquity with which
she dreams of horses: it’s frequently
& with conviction. Turns out
the Counting Crows song I woofed on
about having been written with her
in mind, in fact, stars a protagonist called Margery—who too dreams of horses
but is not a namesake. Blunder aside, dreaming of horses is bunned
in auspiciousness—a boon shaped
by whether the stud’s ridden bareback
or stirrup steered, the cut of the mare’s gait: trot, lope, gallop or sashay. Just imagine, the wholesome company of equestrian
shepherds in the dreamlands, herding
by moonlight; all eyelash flutter & fingertips glancing the night air. The sound of hoofed thunder asleep in the earth.
Me, I dream of snake attacks:
face-bites from vipers; belligerent mambas coiled in the bedsheets; crushed to a cord by an anaconda whilst floating downriver on my lilo; struck in the throat
by the soft-bellied snake that came
to DH Lawrence’s water-trough on that hot, hot day. Too often, do I join
Viking warlord Ragnar Lodbrok
in the fowl pit of serpents
he was tossed into—punctured, poisoned,
suffocated by reptile meat—my flailing limbs slackened to a spasm, the farewell twitch. Dreams of snakes are debated wildly, yet when partnered by death blows it’s safe to assume the demonic
omens these skin-shedders summon
take precedence here. I don’t have an answer, a parable or reading, just a preference
of not this, no more, not me. Afterall,
we began in praise of horses.