Freedom: A Golden Shovel
  
 Don’t bother the Earth spirit who lives here.
           --- Joy Harjo, “Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit”
 
I am a plastic horse on a carousel, don’t
try to detach me. I know nothing of freedom, it could bother
my legs- I would have to be put down like the
injured horse at Belmont Stakes. it, too, knows nothing of this Earth
except for the circle it runs in, whipped of its spirit
breathing heavily in a tight saddle on which a jockey sits who
thinks only of winning and not of you – our lives
are the same, our horseshoes are nailed shut here.


Published in THRUSH Poetry Journal

 

Artist: "Jenni" Guinevere von Sneeden, @guinevere.von.sneeden