A Horse is Not A Horse, Valerie Melichar

There came a time when I realised
that people change their names
and I learned that although I was Cathy
I might as well not be. That threw me.

I sought guidance from a horse.
It whispered quiet, peaceful secrets:
green living, speedy limbs. I vowed to be
a braver gregarious animal.

See, horses don’t call themselves horses.
They think we are rather strange.
They know that they are dinosaurs, heavy
with the wisdom of the ages.

I thought: if horses aren’t horses,
then, surely, humans don’t have to be human.
They told me no, it doesn’t work like that.
They never told me how it does work.

I didn’t speak to horses again,
or humans (whatever that means),
and began to disregard the shape
others gave the world with their names.

I have my own vocabulary now.
It’s odd, some call my lingo strange
and I too have had my doubts,
but on the whole, I feel at home.

The strangeness never subsides
but within it there is something
to be had that is far stranger
than the saddest sadness ever was.

Happiness is what I call it,
and every time it decides to happen
it makes its appearance in a whole new outfit,
incognito to its previous acquaintances.

But I recognise it all the same
because I am not human, not horse.
Sometimes I call it love or table,
sometimes I paint it like Magritte.