you are a boy on your small mare searching

but neither of us can find her

in the oysterbed of hoofbeats and wind

in the torn light between grasses and dunes

the lost sword washes up on the sand

I urge the white horse of memory

with a whip and a branch of heather

your wildest sorrow wet and bright

racing the cloudy stallions of afternoon

but inside the bedsheet’s dry white tent

you hold in your face the salty blade

and I wear by your tears’ consent

her wet crown and the pearl at my neck

as over your shoulder great and riderless

he comes for you snorting with loose bit

  and reins trailed through hoof gouged moor

his saddleless highbred back soaked to one long muscled darkness with rain

Elizabeth Myhr is a poet, editor and publisher. She holds a BA from the Evergreen State College and an MFA from Seattle Pacific University, has served as artist-in-residence at Centrum, and is a Milotte Foundation scholar. In 2010 she co-founded Calypso Editions, a virtual, cooperative press that specializes in literature in translation and emerging writers. Elizabeth currently serves as an editor and manager for Marick Press and Calypso Editions, and has served as editor at Web Del Sol Review of Books, Raven Chronicles and Shining Horns. Her book the vanishings & other poems was published by Calypso in October, 2011, and was listed by Christianity Today as one of its three notable poetry books of 2011. Elizabeth lives in Seattle with her family.