poetry by taylor franson-thiel

A Hymn for Sisterhood

(with a line from K-Ming Chang)

With Devotion

the horse is starving hungry 
enough to bury herself alive 

that a body is having 
no choice but to eat give me 

something other than this hoof 
clumsy than this mane heavy 

my ancestors were tarred 
and feathered I can still taste it

ancestors who braided their daughters 
hair with delicate fingers before 

setting sail in unsafe waters
ancestors who rode horses 

across flood plains and were not afraid 
to pull the trigger if one broke a leg 

I am starving so I hop 
the fence and walk toward 

the horse’s hunger both of us 
licking our lips this horse 

doesn’t know she was breed 
to be still the man who owned her 

liked the way she looked grazing 
upon his barren land we are starving 

but she does not move as I approach 
reach toward her mane and begin to braid