The most efficient way
to count
wild horses
is helicopter flights—the great
speed and whir
of blades in air drives
mustangs from the brush
We count them
three piebald
seven chestnut
two roan
all grey with dust of the plain
Over the low thrum
of the heli comes
the rumble
of hooves black
cracked from shifting rocks
and shale
They gallop towards the ravine
below them, the river
Just when it seems
we will lose them all
they peel from the brink
manes swirling
like plover wings
over salt-damp sand
- Jenny Minniti-Shippey
Jenny Mininiti-Shippey is the managing editor of Poetry International and a professor at San Diego State University. This poem was featured in the Jackson Hole Review, Spring 2011.
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