She stands there in her checkered dress,

velvet tights tucked into riding boots,

no time to change between her lives.

She’s on the move, caressing the lines between

mountains and slopes that rise up and let you see above

all of these worlds, and then she comes down to brush her hair,

pull it into a honey bee hive, apply her mascara that would

never dare run down those porcelain cheeks.

Her skin is milky, and her eyes are stars,

as she rubs a speck of dirt off her legs,

before it crushes itself into her impressions

of knees, of sturdy, strong, stable,

and before I blink she has run behind the church

to where the horses roam behind wooden blocks,

fences put up by the pastor’s son last summer,

the one she had dated for a day then discarded for a dream,

and she leaps over the barrier

before I can even dare to wonder how.

Should’ve figured she’d know how to make a show of her escape.

Guide the horse into her pathways, show them the streams and grassy fields

they needed to cross together and instill a fearlessness into a creature

made fearful by past strangers, but she pushes them forward with a simple

brush on the side, soft glide of the hand, then a gentle push into their skin

that would make anyone want to run towards that setting Arizona sun.