Four Horses

Babies locked down in the basement
Place Mother deemed the safest
Floor of dirt and walls of rock
and four horses named-

“War- Sick- Hunger- Death”

Mother departs sleep in mind
strands both sounder and stable
in lowly room of earth and stone

Youngest thrashes, self-inflicts
zero sum of raspberry wounds

Febrile brother, plays with blocks
building not but shedding virus

In thinnest gluttony reigns, but
only hungers for the sourest flavor

Eldest, colic twisting his gut
palliates by dreaming up requiems

…and the horses race forth-
hooves heavy, scarring ground

Mother Time now awakens
flows to her dinner table

The hour glass is flipped around
Gift of recurrence is nocked on bow
Time’s Arrow looses in inverse.

Imagine then-
these four powers
in time which
direction has reversed

Imagine, too, these four horses-
front an apocalyptic vision,
yet legs betraying,
racing backwards-

Hooves heavy- repairing earth.