after Christopher Gilbert

I forget the night         the horse was born whole

and sprinting    out from its mother

as if      she were a burning barn

I forget            I was a human daughter then

with a salt lick in my palm

the beast          mistook for moon

I forget how grandmother       was chased

around the earth          by a bad spirit  bent

on killing her girl-children       during birth

I forget I made it here              because she lived

they all lived          out-lived husbands 

widowed hooves          thrown into wind so strong

I forget it         Like I did their maiden names

I ask for them now                  to begin

calling  to my future       children who

I forget            would then be named

after     a distant flock

of fathers         and husbands that

I forget on purpose         How far back

do I have to go to find

a mother’s true name     where no one ever uttered

“I forgot her”              after it?

Farther      than where our common ancestor

with horses      lived?

I forget            how far for me                 

isn’t far at all            for the legs of horses

or for      seeds  salt  soil   mountains  ice

I forget            at one point

we were family with everything

Birth being       a molten bubble in the sea

I forget mother            was once the only name

for a home       that had to be on fire

to be had            at all

---