At midnight on Hallowe’en, my back to the moon, I looked in the mirror to scry my lover-to-be. His face rose like a drowned man’s. At twilight I walked by the lochan in the hills where the whaap’s cry wavers from the reeds. A piebald pony ambled up. His nostrils pulsed as he blew into my hand. Clicking my tongue, I patted his flanks and his muscles shivered like water in the wind. When he lowered his head, I knew I must mount. I rode him through the night, gripping his back between my thighs till I slid on our sweat and he rolled me into cold, green fire. I clung to his mane blooming with algae, his shoulders encrusted with mussels and mire. His hooves softened and opened into a fan of fingers and toes. Belly flattening, spine whip-lashing, he bucked and shrank into a man. As the dark fled, he turned to plunge me under but dawn broke and he poured through my arms. I was alone, calling, calling with no answer, only the widening circles on the loch.
Notes: A Njuggle is a demon water horse or pony found in Shetlandic and Orkney folklore. A whaap (Shetlandic) - a curlew. Published in the author's pamphlet 'Flout' (HappenStance, 2015). |
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