Going Back

GOING BACK /Bruce Beasley Once when I was five years old, a white horse orbited this white lake: its hooves stomped through the ice to the dead, crunched grass; it drooled from its bit in the cold, it stood alone by the lake and neighed at me, and the water tower hung flashing in the winter sun. The blue-winged mosquito-hawks that used to rise and fall by the lake are gone: there's nothing moving here anymore but the lake's brink, the cat's-paw, the moon dropped on the surface of the water. Crickets cry out expectantly for rain. And the porch light stirs, like silt, dragging itself back toward the lake. 30 ¦ The Missouri Review ...