Mary Wemple is another Mutabilis Press poet. I knew her when we were in college — not as well as I’d have liked — because her older sister and I were classmates. But I knew her well enough to recognize her by a different name many years later and want to get to know her again.

Mary is not just a capable poet, as her poem “White Horse” below will demonstrate, but also an accomplished visual artist. One thing I love about this poem is that it inhabits a sort of liminal space between despair and dream, between nostalgia and hindsight.

White Horse

He stands in the kitchen
quiet, waiting
ribs showing.

It occurs to me
that he’s starving
and I should let him in the backyard.
It’s my childhood home.
Everything bad began here.

He does not eat the grass.
He darts back and forth
along the fence
graceful,
despondent.

Behind him
in the distance,
cleared land,
a stable.

This poem was published by the Austin International Poetry Festival in 2015.

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Go to this month’s first Poem-A-Day to learn how to participate in a game as part of this year’s series. You can have just a little involvement or go all the way and write a cento. I hope you’ll join in!

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Mary Wemple is a poet, artist and creator of Words & Art, a reading and workshop series inspired by the art in Houston. She holds degrees in English and Studio Art from the University of Houston and an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her poetry has been published in DiVerseCity 2015, Houston Poetry Fest 2005, 2009, 2014, Harbinger Asylum and she was featured in the 2014 Words Around Town! poetry tour lineup. Her art has been shown at the Inman gallery, DiverseWorks and Lawndale Art Center.