Horse Latitudes
The past lies in the brine
Of equatorial water,
Parchment-folded,
Black ink veining where the quill paused.
Rich doldrums
Full of gold
Where Spanish sailors
Threw the Queen’s horses,
Palomino, the color of her hair.
On the Outer Banks
Each wave a breaking
Promise of the New World,
Lost colonies,
Lost ships, wild ponies
Swimming even now.
Copyright © 2014 by Jo Sarzotti. Used with permission of the author.
“This poem existed unfinished for quite a while, in particular, the parts referring to the colonial era practice of lightening cargo ships becalmed in equatorial waters (‘horse latitudes’) by unloading livestock overboard. It took a trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina and confronting the eerie mysteries of the origin of wild, roaming horses and lost colonies of settlers to finish it.”
—Jo Sarzotti