Horse Whip by Sharon Waller Knutson
It cracks through the air
like an electric jolt,
the hiss of a rattlesnake,
the scream of a cougar.
He is out there again
on the neighboring acreage,
his bare chest and back
charred by the Arizona sun
forcing the wild mustangs
to obey his commands.
Like me, the horses flinch, stomp
and shake their heads,
missing hearing only the whistle
of the wind and cry of the hawk
as they race along the Salt River Basin
as if it is the Kentucky Derby.
Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in a wildlife habitat in Arizona. She has published several poetry books including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields by Flutter Press and What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say and Trials & Tribulations of Sports Bob forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Her work has also appeared in various journals most recently in Spillwords, Trouvaille Review, Muddy River Review, Gleam, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, Red Eft Review and The Song Is…