It’s like seeing horses
in a field near
the side of the road,
secure in wool blankets
flicking flies off
brown haunches
with slow whips of their tails.
Thinking about how
badly you want one.
How you can’t believe
this beast is real.
You promise to be
a better everything
if you only had your own.
But—
all this wanting
without really knowing
anything about horses—
Their smell, their size,
what they eat
how they fear
why they run.
Born A Stray
Whitney Hudak is a CNM and poet living in Newport, RI. She has work appearing or forthcoming in Pine Hills Review, Streetlight Magazine, and Hunger Mountain, among others, and is a Pushcart nominee. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and a DNP from Columbia University.