Size / / /

It's no fit weather, no fit time, for a fleshless horse to ride—

but she's clad for parties: trailing ribbons and bells,

a bedsheet-cloak; her eyes the greenest bottle-ends

that ever saw out an old year or midwifed a new.

Her bone-beaked head is all a-grin with

the laugh that outlives both mares and men.

With hobnailed boots (so much better than hooves)

she strikes sparks from the street;

demanding entry from each merrisome home.

A duel of insults, from without and within, will turn the key.

The Grey Mare knows all your secrets. Let her in;

hold a bowlful of beer up to her sprung jaws

and she'll bless you for a twelvemonth.

Your past rides her onto the next house, and the next,

until, saddled with time and harnessed by ale,

she canters to unknown meadows between the winters:

a grazing beyond the bells of the new.

But you know some roads will always lead her back—

make her welcome.


This poem was part of our 2012 fund drive bonus issue! Read more about Strange Horizons' funding model, or donate, here.




Mat Joiner lives near Birmingham, England, where they absorb tea and second-hand books, watch foxes, and admire crumbling buildings. Their stories and poems have appeared in Not One Of UsLackingtons, Goblin Fruit, and Stone Telling. You can find them on Twitter as @damsonfox
Current Issue
7 Apr 2025

It is no small thing to call forth life from the desert; do not imagine any but a witch could do it so well.
roaring engines now my battle hymn
To the timorous mouse / she is a mother’s nest
By: Lowry Poletti
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Lowry Poletti's BRIDE / BUTCHER / DOE read by Emmie Christie Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠
Friday: Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky 
Issue 31 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Mar 2025
Issue 17 Mar 2025
Issue 10 Mar 2025
By: Holli Mintzer
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 3 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Feb 2025
Issue 17 Feb 2025
Issue 10 Feb 2025
By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 27 Jan 2025
By: River
Issue 20 Jan 2025
Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Load More