The Gift

One morning, I dreamt that two witches conjured a big horse
to throw my way, a horse born of river and wind. But I was so
scared of this gift that the horse shrunk into tiny winged ponies
and just hovered over my head. I felt so grateful and relieved
to have dodged his large equine scent, and can you imagine
all that hair, and the size of his hooves – and the endless
bags of chickpeas I would have had to feed him, this giant.
The amount of work it would have taken to bring up
a magical horse just seemed so impractical. But now that
I am ordinary once again and begging for the dragonflies
outside my window to stop distracting me by cutting
the air like a poem waiting to be written, I wish I had
accepted the gift – I could have loved that velvet giant,
I could have whispered prophetic poetry in his dark ears.
He could’ve ran for me. I could’ve been his human mare.

Kunjana Parashar is a poet from Mumbai who holds an MA in English Literature from Mumbai University. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in The Hellebore, Lammergeier, Barren Magazine, The Rumpus (ENOUGH series), Camwood Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @wolfwasp.