The horses know the plague is coming, they are uneasy,
they see the flies ruby-red and fat as billionaires
they hear the flies with their many voices singing pandemonium,
O the feasts we shall feast, the loving cups that we shall quaff.

The horses know. They plunge and arch like fire under the blue sky,
they jump at the sound of a toy truck, they see the wild geese mounting
to the clouds, they snort and paw furrows in the earth.
They have waited all winter for spring and the green grass,
but now they feel the fear in our fingers, they hear our minds cry that
we must turn away from death, it is time to ride, ride, ride
back into the snow back into winter when the future was sleeping.
They see us coming with all our bones on show,
they turn and wheel and race away, over the hill without us.

All our years they have borne our burdens and wars and death for us,
while we brought the flies, we hurled our books and chairs and goblets
into fires and put our own heads on spikes and paraded them around like banners.

The horses have had enough, maybe, of this fear in our fingertips, of our plagues.
Enough of Mr. Monopoly Man with his fast car and giant thimble and
shoes not made for walking. The horses are running and their hooves
strike sparks from flint fires rise and the fish leap upstream the geese
wing their way to where north was before we erased it and
wherever they're going we can't catch up.