Spell for Calling Out River Horses
I step into the river when the sky
is damp charcoal, swirl with my hands
the moon-freckled water. Dip my head
into the river, bring it up
and spit an arc towards the silhouette
trees in their absence, let the water
fall to the rushes. Between my fish-pale legs
the river horse rises. Slick skinned
from the silt, halterless as an otter
it rises. I will hold forever
to its marble neck as the carousel is starting,
a circuit of black horses, wide
as the oceans. Past lonely warehouses
and gantries of the river, the horses
are swimming, the river horses racing
the current. They describe a carousel
as wide as the oceans, a tide of seal-black horses.
Rowyda Amin is the author of the poetry chapbooks Desert Sunflowers (flipped eye) and We Go Wandering at Night and Are Consumed by Fire (Sidekick Books). Rowyda has won the Venture Award for poetry chapbooks from Flipped Eye Press and the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize for poetry. She has performed at the Ledbury Poetry Festival, the Brighton Festival, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Festival Hall. rowyda.com
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