Ponies

When the ponies are let out at dusk, they are pound into their pasture,

pitching and bucking like the brutes their genes must dream they still
are.

In their shaggy, winter-coarse coats, they seem stubbier than ever,
more diminutive, toylike, but then they begin their aggression rituals,

ears flattened, stained brown teeth bared, hindquarters humped,
and they're savage again, cruel, all but carnivorous if they could be.

Their shoes have been pulled off for the season, their halters are rope,
so they move without sound, as though on tiptoe, through the rising
mist.

They drift apart now, halfheartedly nosing the stiff, sapless remnants
of field hay; sometimes one will lift and gaze back toward the barn.

A tiny stallion lies down, tolling onto his back first, than all the way flat.
A snort, rich, explosive, an answering sigh: silence again, shadows, dark.

-C.K. Williams