The Vision (A Saviour’s Dream)

Prancing and strutting and buck buck
Bucking around the round pen, a white horse
Carries The Vision us sorry directors
Long to free.

She screams wildly. We stare and starve
In desperation for a chance, kick,
Snort, brush—anything
To keep us quite for a while: a blind chippy tea; while the dust

Doesn’t land much on her: we keep throwing in
New dresses and kerchiefs. One of the extras (truly
Us lot) runs in
To sweep up. Gets stamped on. We swoon.

A few of them then lose interest. “She just goes ‘round
And ‘round, mate,’ they say. Cowards. Me,
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John: we find an axe
Instead to break the pen’s lock.

“Don’t you boys
Dare now!” Her father. “You really want to see that again?”
We leave

The stands with her fate
All but accepted. Only
I need dragging.

*

Yet here I am, not quite leaving it alone.
And so this is gospel:

I went back later that night, found the axe
And smashed the lock and shot her father

And the horse in ill temple. I then took The Vision
Far away from her pen—from blind dirt

To sight—and for centuries, we broke our cages
Against each other

Before running
Around in our own good heavens forever.