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
18 Mar 2024

Strange Horizons
We are very happy to welcome Dante Luiz as a new fiction editor on the team! Dante is a Ignyte Award winning author, and has been with Strange Horizons working as an Art Director for the past several years. We’re stoked to bring him on to the fiction side and have him bring his wonderful insight and skill to the fiction team.
Day in and day out, the rough waters of the Pacific slam themselves against the protrusion of sandstone the locals refer to as Morro Rock. White streaks of bird shit bleed down the rock, a testament to the rare birds of prey that nest in its pocked face overlooking the bay.
in my defence, juggling biological and artificial, i tripped over my shoelace, and spilled my lungs empty of the innocence that was, before guilt.
the birds, / who carry with them / the many names of the dead
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