The Horse Is The Villain

The children blindfold me,
tie my dyed hair
across my eyes
like a harness,
wedge a sock
in my mouth. Struggle
with the instinct
toward what they can’t
 
grasp. Lead me
to an imagined
trailer, its rubber
wheels, red
mulch, wrestle me
inside. Drive me around
the property, stripped
since the last tornado.
 
I tell them I am unsafe
with my mother.
Hear her call out in the near
dark. The hair loosens
from my eyes.
We are all of us unsafe
together
in the coming night,
 
stumbling
toward a rusted out
Chevelle,
through the crackle
of AM radio
—a preacher
wailing his homily
like a pack of baying hounds.

first published in The Maine Review