Even late school nights, Epona would call
from the last box in town to still take coins
to ask me to meet her at the old greyhound track
by the abandoned chicken cart.
A filament of green light from god knows what
hung in the sky beside dull oxen clouds
and pale moths made an orrery around
the solitary yellow globe above the street crossing.
I’d cross the empty streets to sit beside her on the wall
by the side entrance car park. As she told me
of adventures with her posse in the forest,
or of her long run to the outer hills, or how she lost
her turquoise ring braiding the river of Pele’s hair,
I’d remember the unopened worksheet on tangential velocity
waiting for me in my backpack.
Last night I opened my arms to the rays
of our shared red star and unfastened the suitcase
at the back of my trailer to read for the first time
in decades my enthusiastic predictions for these future years
scribbled in biro at the back of a B5 notebook
with the charm and accuracy of an astrological chart
drawn at a market fair stall. I would be the successor
to the wealth and fame of my father’s vacuum appliance
emporium and Epona would lead her wagon train troupe
of performers and musicians across distant plains and plateaux
each stop an embroidered, embellished story to be danced and told.