Afterword

Long after and still,
three horses appear.

I am a child’s
corner of that field.
A huge readiness.

I stare into a face with too much.

I contain what I don’t want to say

and exist so outside my voice
why even talk.

The fear like a dark
ringed circle with bells.

The task to touch what exists while we do.
The three horses gone.

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Lauren Hilger is the author of Lady Be Good (CCM, 2016) Named a Nadya Aisenberg Fellow in poetry from the MacDowell Colony, she has also received fellowships from the Hambidge Center and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has appeared or forthcoming in BOMB, Gulf Coast, Harvard Review online, Kenyon Review online, Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. She serves as a poetry editor for No Tokens.