A Maxine Gadd poem written sometime between 1967-1971. From Lost Language: Selected Poems (Toronto: Coach House, 1982).

i am on my high horse

(for Diane di Prima)

i am on my high horse when the snake came along
and wow, wound itself
about my thigh
hardboiled? mother!
what grace within yr voice
I'll fake whatever you find
so as not to tremble
as the sweet notes in you do
yr nerves are as glass; had i the power
my hair washed by the warmest rain
be grass on which to lie, our prisons broken down
step out now