poetry festivalDr. William Henry Drummond Poetry Contest 2015
Second Place: Horse and Train by Alex Colville, Art Gallery of Hamilton
A black horse hangs
fixed on a white wall
she is ill, gone wild.
It is Spring, past starlight
in Sackville
below an elaborate cobweb
of clouds.
A wild horse gallops
towards the steamy light
to a sleepless train.
In minutes the broken
mare will die
again —
With a kind of beauty
that invades our dreams
colliding each morning
on waking alone in the dark,
lower lip quivering
against the passage of light.