Nancy Reisman

In the small pasture, one horse lay on the ground and the other stood beside it, unmoving, the day just beginning to warm. Later they would run circles in the dirt and buck, kicking up their legs, thrilling, it seemed, to be themselves on that clear afternoon.

Gregg Williard

I can’t go to the meeting tonight because I’m working. In the dark he whips his head around and cringes when cars go by. I have to stand up again because the motion sensor in the empty classroom shut off the lights. The active shooter drill in the office is scheduled for Wednesday.

Bolesław Leśmian

That night the dark was sultry, steamy with lust.
Cornflowers, lit up by dry lightning, flashed
Directly into a deer’s eye; into forest,
By foreign-pupils startled, deer then dashed.
The blooms azured her head, fled cervinely
And, greedy, watched the world cornfloweredly.