The Jockey
By Elise Hempel
Atop his exhausted buggy with its
rusted wheels and now-stuck key,
one boot missing, a faded jersey,
the bill of his cap cracked off, he sits
behind a nicked brown horse that once
flicked its tail, clattered around
planked floor or rug when the buggy was wound
after school by children who've since
fallen behind him, white-haired or gone,
as he still waves the flopping spring
of his crop, still stares through dimming
goggles, gathering gray ribbons
of dust in his silent, frozen race
down an ever-unfurling track,
hunched to win, leaving far back
all claps and laughter, his once-smooth face
scarred and pitted, just the white
fleck of a smile now, more a sneer,
his empty fists on the reins of air
still holding tight.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2015 by Elise Hempel , “The Jockey,” (Able Muse: A Review of Poetry, No. 20, Winter 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Elise Hempel and the publisher.