You were born a swath of frost
in the clover, nudged up
on icicle legs. Now you cut

through men like a derecho,
sulfur and Sodom in your nostrils,
entrails winding your hooves.

I am trying to believe that God
doesn’t will destruction, that out of love
he allows our terrible freedoms

to gallop across the globe.
The arrows tremble in your shoulders.
I pull them out, hum softly

and stroke your heaving flanks,
even if your rider presses his sword to my neck,
even if the book says I’m too late.