I drove passed Pickneyville,

let the colloquial explosion of naming

a town slip into my drowsiness,

while I kept one eye struggling for light. 

I was driving away from my grading

of composition papers, on an interstate

to St. Louis, while the fog outside

infiltrated my head space.  All was white.

I fought at fighting, kept pushing lead

eyelids up until the muscled fog

swallowed me in an abrupt braking.

I saw where they escaped, the small

hilltop where fence was corrupted.  All over

the highway, the horses hung out, majestic,

shinny with muscular toned skin representing

heaven’s third ward—encircled by clouds,

car completely at full stop, on a lonely high—

way with horses.  Me.  They stop-signed

my doubt, took over two lanes of road,

like an orange highway crew.  Dreamy, we

all were in God’s mind, no ground existed. 

They were wild, life—free, roaming a great

expanse of faith.  And for minutes the loud

words of hooves faded from road to grass. 

They gave me passage, as the white around

their legs made them roll by me, before I

knew I was looking back at black voltage

thighs, or life’s true burgundy of a buttock,

through my rear view; and still, no cars came

from the south.  The black horse fiercely shook

his mane.  The rest of gang eyed me going

north.  A whiteness shifted, as sound tried

hugging my tires, tried playing with rubber

on concrete.  My head cleared.  Awoke,

I rode.  Watched another phalanx of horses

trot down hill in rear view.  Oh, so honest.

Brace