on becoming a horse / carriage in july

all summer i watch humans taking carriage rides.
a carriage is flexible in the city.
there are carriages with horses 
& carriages with bikes & carriages with scooters.
someone is carrying someone else.
i have fantasies of carriages 
when i walk to work from penn station. 
i conjure a miniature horse
that might carry my back pack. i watch
a horse's ribs moving underneath her skin
as she pulls a carriage. she breathes heavy 
in the smog of the city. rubber is burning.
the bakery is thick with chocolate.
i consider taking a carriage ride 
all the way back to where i'm from:
a small town in pennsylvania where horses pull people 
up and down the steet in carts each day.
a carn horn screams. 
a red light eats a fragment of sky.
the tall buildings lean on each other.
we're glistening with swet. 
there are people talking loudy on their phones
about weddings & old shoes.
a man pulling a carriage with his bike 
speeds past, nearly hitting me on the crosswalk.
i try to imagine what the collision might have looked like.
i don't blame him. he has three people 
in his carriage which is more than i could ever handle.
i'm not pulling anyone unless you count 
the weight of memories. i am not a father or a mother
& i am barely a brother. 
i tell myself to be my own horse.
i pull my body down streets & up stairs 
& into trains. i consider a subway car full of horses
& how in the city it might not even seem that outlandish. 
everyone gets hooves this summer. 
the carriages always have fake flowers. 
the fake flowers
wobble in the rush. 
i consider carrying fake flowers with me all day
& whether or not it could make me feel
like a horse. i try everything.
i get on all fours. i eat tufts of grass.
my body is a stiching of crosswalks.
i miss something un-namble 
about where i'm from. 
i pause & the horse on the side of the street 
asks me if i'm going to pay for a ride.
i step back & say i'm not.