I Think My Sister Is Secretly a Horse

          for Meaghen

No woman of my bloodline ever moved that way,
the way she strides at full speed—all leg and lung,

stretch and push, flex of flank and foot and slice
of hand, right, left, right—against bracing beach wind.

You can see it if you watch her, held to a walk
in the classroom in sensible flats, tracing the smooth

S-shaped curves of sine and cosine on an aged board 
in chalk, in the way she trots to unlock her bicycle

to get her heart rate up as her pedals press the day 
into yesterday. And once home, watch as she leaves

the house and reveals her canter, that three-beat gait
in-between the walk and run, the joy of the warm-up

as she works her way into her gallop, the freedom 
of full speed, both feet off the ground at the same time.