Abi Curtis
Bare-back rider
I tight-rope
on appaloosa stepping-stones
set in a back of dusted hair,
feel the muscles meld with my own.
Tuned into hamstrings,
my flat-foot to a deltoid,
dappled in the shadows
of a safety net.
My girl’s body dazzles
with machinery of heft and bone.
I’m spread thin at my extremities,
my eyes huge and hooded.
We go, transforming sawdust
to a sea’s rough shoreline,
adding light to it.
While we are one, we are safe.
But an errant finger-tip,
a turn of eye a millimetre left,
a camera-flash might spook
a tendon out of synch.
And then we’ll know the hooves,
the drop down to
the smack of shit and confetti
on the lips. The taste
of tigerclaw and clownfoot.
There’ll be a strange perspective on
the pinnacle of silk that forms a roof.
My pearlescent taffeta spattered,
Her feather slumped and she
breathing wetly, untethered, untamed.
They’ll take their decision,
either lift me to my shuddered feet
to bow, remount and flourish,
Or pronounce me lame.
on appaloosa stepping-stones
set in a back of dusted hair,
feel the muscles meld with my own.
Tuned into hamstrings,
my flat-foot to a deltoid,
dappled in the shadows
of a safety net.
My girl’s body dazzles
with machinery of heft and bone.
I’m spread thin at my extremities,
my eyes huge and hooded.
We go, transforming sawdust
to a sea’s rough shoreline,
adding light to it.
While we are one, we are safe.
But an errant finger-tip,
a turn of eye a millimetre left,
a camera-flash might spook
a tendon out of synch.
And then we’ll know the hooves,
the drop down to
the smack of shit and confetti
on the lips. The taste
of tigerclaw and clownfoot.
There’ll be a strange perspective on
the pinnacle of silk that forms a roof.
My pearlescent taffeta spattered,
Her feather slumped and she
breathing wetly, untethered, untamed.
They’ll take their decision,
either lift me to my shuddered feet
to bow, remount and flourish,
Or pronounce me lame.
Abi Curtis was born in 1979 and lives in Brighton. She was an Eric Gregory winner in 2004 and is currently completing a PhD in creative and critical writing at the University of Sussex.
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