The Coaxing
Because I was young and left searching,
a dress never to fit, but to fill its journey,
windblown therapy on hard red roads.
Like an open book, its strangers shifting dust
so that each day may begin simply—
the mare’s smooth head raised to morning,
a ruby on each horizon, worth a child’s devotion.
To pause and play and waste a little light—
in corners of my own blooming,
your body returning an ancestral gift.
Because the horse lowers its head at dusk,
water spreads wide with moonlight.
There is pleasure in the sound of drinking
as some measure of death, stripped of clothes
— or lovers by a river trying not to drown.
I miss how hands comfort through a war,
I miss the depth of snow’s indiscrimination.
Because I am old and left searching,
a foal in June leaves what must be left—
its coat a flaxen vision I had not witnessed,
nor thought of chasing on my way through.
Vikki C. is a British-born, award-nominated writer, poet and musician whose work explores the intersections of ecology, myth, existentialism and the human condition. She is the author of the chapbook The Art of Glass Houses (Alien Buddha Press, 2022) and the full collection Where Sands Run Finest (DarkWinter Press, 2024).
Vikki’s poetry and fiction are internationally published/forthcoming in Stone Circle Review, EcoTheo Review, Psaltery & Lyre, ONE ART Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Ballast Journal, Dust Poetry Magazine, Ice Floe Press, Black Bough Poetry, DarkWinter Lit, Acropolis Journal, The Belfast Review, The Winged Moon, Sontag Mag, Boats Against The Current, Nightingale & Sparrow, Origami Poems, Jerry Jazz Musician, Lazuli Literary Group and various other venues.
Amethyst Review 