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2023 Academy of American Poets Prize

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For the Horses

by Chloe Wegrzynowicz

The wilting is all daffodils, and the farmer is sweating, by his daffodil yellow sea, the dirt road to the field from the ocean becomes steep and I am foraging, for the horses. For the horses I gather daffodils, yellow, and foraged I must water them, with sweet sweat – the tea is steeped, with salty sea. The corn field farm is seaside – waves crash against the rocky climb to the farm and the corn crumbles fearful of flood. Our horses are kept neat and tidy. The daffodils sprout widely and wildly through the fields adjacent to the corn field farm – waves crash against the rocky climb to the farm and the corn crumbles fearful of a flood. In my little palms, this I gather for the horses, this is daffodils dancing across my skin. Angry, the farmer sent my horses out to sea. I kiss the petals and send them out to sea, for my galloping little plastic horses. The horses floating in the farmer’s steep field to floor and flowering, daffodils floating and flowing from my eyes, sweat pouring and pounding, sounds of foraging. My horses – sunken. This was the farmer’s final forage shining little lights; the corn stalk sea is sweating, the waves of the ocean are beating against the plastic, melting plastic of the tiny horses mixing with salted water; horse bodies floating fishes; fish choking on the plastic horses that my little hands once adorned with daffodils, painted, on their plastic, sweeping, lines, steep. The sea line near the farmhouse is steeping, seeping and dreary and foraged from the cobwebs and heat, no daffodils bloom now, only there now is the sound of the sea, sour and full of toy horses that the farmer threw into the sea, sad and sweating. Drowning horses, salted, tears sweating. The dusted kettle, loudly calls me to save my horses – Here, now, just our horses are found and foraged, fished with flimsy nets from the sea by the farmer. Just our horses buried in the field of rusted daffodils. One by one each painted daffodil is painted on my stone by the farmer, sweating and regretful, of the sea which steeped h

 

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