WHAT CAN'T BE HELD
I dreamed of a carnival at night; a maze of linen tents flapping against their hoistings.
Women with kohl-lined eyes and long layered dresses, shiny objects dangling in stalls.
It was now, and the lights of the rides reflected in a lake, spinning, rising, falling.
It was not now. Nearby horses huffed, hitched to posts.
I held in my right hand a wad of cash as thick as a dictionary. I did not care about it,
but I did not let it go. I was looking for someone in the maze of tents,
in the dazzle of lights. I did not expect to find him. I wandered if one of the women
read cards, or peered into a clear bowl of water, if she could see how I would find him?
Where was he? Also, lights on the lake. The water lapped; they lolled
but did not blur. Rising and falling ones left streaks, spinning ones circles,
the water black, the water clear as air near my toes. I wanted to catch this to keep.
I remembered a white horse in full gallop beneath me through a tunnel of trees, sun high,
leather of reins held slack as the horse stretched his muscled neck, his gait gaining haste.
I wanted to tell of the gray-blue dapples dripping from his neck like rain,
dapples dripping from me, tears made by sun and leaves, by speed and breeze.
Telling this seemed more important than where I rode to. Telling, a task I knew I'd never complete.
Women with kohl-lined eyes and long layered dresses, shiny objects dangling in stalls.
It was now, and the lights of the rides reflected in a lake, spinning, rising, falling.
It was not now. Nearby horses huffed, hitched to posts.
I held in my right hand a wad of cash as thick as a dictionary. I did not care about it,
but I did not let it go. I was looking for someone in the maze of tents,
in the dazzle of lights. I did not expect to find him. I wandered if one of the women
read cards, or peered into a clear bowl of water, if she could see how I would find him?
Where was he? Also, lights on the lake. The water lapped; they lolled
but did not blur. Rising and falling ones left streaks, spinning ones circles,
the water black, the water clear as air near my toes. I wanted to catch this to keep.
I remembered a white horse in full gallop beneath me through a tunnel of trees, sun high,
leather of reins held slack as the horse stretched his muscled neck, his gait gaining haste.
I wanted to tell of the gray-blue dapples dripping from his neck like rain,
dapples dripping from me, tears made by sun and leaves, by speed and breeze.
Telling this seemed more important than where I rode to. Telling, a task I knew I'd never complete.
Mary Ann Honaker is the author of It Will Happen Like This (YesNo Press, 2015) and Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019). Her poems have appeared in 2 Bridges, Drunk Monkeys, Euphony, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Off the Coast, Rattle.com, Van Gogh’s Ear, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart prize. Mary Ann holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. She currently lives in Beaver, West Virginia. She tweets at @MaryAnnHonaker1.
