with the shadows
hand on your haunch
fingers tangled in your glistening mane

an unflagging pace on a long road your trajectory
is a single note rising inexorably from
the throat of a marble statue

can you hear it high and thin
your mother’s call snaking through
all the heavens above you and behind and beyond

you stamp your hoof and the mountain cracks
lightning and thunder and a fountain
springs to life oh rest a while

let me dismount and take a sip
before I fall forever from your storied back
to wander lost and blind and lonely and you disappear

in translation
into a lovely assembly
of stars

[Hillary Lyon is editor for the small press poetry journals The Laughing Dog, and Veil: Journal of Darker Musings. She holds an MA in Literature from SMU. Her work has appeared recently in Red River Review, Scifaikuest, and Red Fez. She lives in Southern Arizona.]