All Over Again

A post. I ask you.

One day you will throw the stable doors wide,
and the horse will not come. You will beg 
and pray and plead but it will be done,
O, it will be done. One day you will wake up
to find your house has grown unbearable, 
the books, the bed, and you will walk out
on the whole shebang, as the poet said—
except the goddamn horse won’t cooperate.
He’ll dig in his heels, spit out the bit, vote neigh. 
You can’t move a horse if he won’t move, 
and you will wonder what, exactly, you meant
to prove as you go back in to pour the coffee, 
as you always do this time of day.

All horses get complacent in the end. You know
what it takes to entice even you outside
these days—old thrills ring hollow now
and anyway, the roads are bad. Dismal people 
hang out in the muggy bars, unknown to you. 
What’s out there for the horse? A post? 
Gee, thanks, a post. At least in here there’s hay. 
The promise of the pasture grows less sweet,
in time, than the promise of the pasture 
on some future day—when the stars are right,
when the weather’s better, when the ghost
is visiting another town. A post. I ask you.  
You don’t know the meaning of “tied down.”