Equidae by Michelle Reale

Equidae
 
Not all theories
are prescriptive. Getting
through the day
 
is a spiritual act,
the blue and yellow
lessons it taught me
 
nearly always forgotten
by the weekend. I shoved
green in the corner and stalked
 
the pink horse all the way
to its natural border where
it could hang its heavy head
 
and sway on fragile legs.  I marked x’s
in strategic places. I hoped to find my way
back, if only I had memory to
 
begin again.  The happiness will
come either before or after
the sadness leaves me bereft
 
at the falling fence , but I
am not taking sides.  An accelerant
with just the right ignition
 
will catch fire
in all the right places
because it is in its nature to do so.

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Bio: Michelle Reale is an Associate Professor at Arcadia University. She has authored seven poetry collections including the most recent The Marie Curie Sequence (Dancing Girl Press, 2017) and All These Things Were Real: Poems of Delerium Tremens, (West Philly Press, 2017). Confini: Poems of Refugees in Sicily is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. 

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