Escape
Braced against the wood post,
I watch the horses gallop out of the barn,
their buckskin legs beating the ground
like fists into dough, their slick bodies
bustling toward the corner of the field
where the fence has begun
to rot, is almost jumpable. At the rails
they snort but do not attempt the last
long stride into the pines. Only their eyes
run out over the distant grasses
the way my mother’s ran out the kitchen window
those mornings they searched
for something else
beyond us playing in the yard.
A PhD student in creative writing at Georgia State University, Joshua Lee Martin has been published or has work forthcoming in The Cortland Review, Appalachian Heritage, The Raleigh Review, The Cumberland River Review, decomP, and elsewhere. He was recently a finalist in the 2016 Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition and the 2016 Coal Hill Review Contest, and his chapbook, Passing Through Meat Camp, was a finalist in the 2015 Jacar Press Chapbook Competition. He currently teaches composition at Georgia State University.