Horse on a High Cliff
Solana L. Perez

My horse is standing on a precipice, his ears additional peaks in the view,
Glaring like snow in the noonday sun,
While I squint into the distance between them, sweating and burning in the heat.

Come on, horse. Let’s get a move on. Stop staring at nothing.

I wonder what fills his head in this stillness.
Is it the ghosts of his herd down there in that valley? His parents died four years ago, buried in a landslide.
Does he want to return to the wild? Life is hard out there, I think at him.
You’ll have no shelter during the storms, and the grass no longer grows in the dry months.

The cliff beneath his feet starts to crumble, and with a snort he finally turns away.
If only there were trees then we could have had some shade, I think, and the soil wouldn’t be so loose.

Too late for thinking, the edge we stood on has already fallen down the mountain,
And we’re moving now.