At Five

Marina Shemesh

At Five 

she had left on bare feet

reaching up for the single

key above the door meant

to keep her in and walking

out in the weak light across

the dry weed strewn grass

Phase One complete -

scratches on soft ankles

all the way to the cracked

board in back of the barn,

wiggling through,

breath catching,

almost stuck,

then through

Phase Two complete -

inhaling each soft velvet scent

of manure, grain, horse breath

in the stall of Player, slipping

in as he shook his heavy drops

of him wetting her cheeks his

eyes meeting hers – his level,

calm, with just a sparkle of

glint of open green fields and

their ride away from that gray

house to a golden horizon arc -

for now, she sat in the corner

of the stall below where the

feedbag would attach and he

would with gentle snuffling

eat, and she would be found

and dragged by an arm or a

leg back to that house smiling

on this five year old birthday

Phase Three Complete the

scent of hay and him and the

future clinging to her

like her future babies
no matter what