Margaret Malochleb

The Tower of Blue Horses

after Franz Marc

I worked hard to memorize blue, coaxed
each of her hues into the open and held them
in my hand. Faithful to the old ways, I heeded
her summons and followed her salt-spun
whisper into the dun of the winter glen.
But it wasn’t long before she lured me into
a corral, the one where the missing horses
once settled at day’s end. Alone, I waited
among the scattershot shadows climbing
the fence, listened to the harassing wind,
the rasp of goldenrod in the distance.
Hours passed. No sound of comfort came
to me, no warm hand across my shoulder.
I questioned whether she had led me astray,
whether the cold and dun and salt-spun
whisper were a trick, or a test. Soon I fell
asleep on the hard ground, my body exhausted,
my mind unable to rest. When I opened
my eyes, the corral was filled with horses,
steam rising from their nostrils, their bare backs
gleaming in the first light of day. I looked
down at my open hand. It was empty, drained
of color, white as the blaze on a star-faced mare
pressing her blue muzzle into the onrush of wind.

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Margaret Malochleb is a poet, writer and editor based in Chicago. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Cream City Review, Rattle, Painted Bride Quarterly, Rust & Moth and I-70 Review, among other journals.