In the center of the ring, you balance
a blue-skirted rider, her ruffled edge

the audience, blinking in a gust of lights.
Your trainer has taught you to bear barebacked,

mane a cirrus trail feathered by exhales.
Through the tent flaps, you smell field

grass releasing the day’s heat into an unseen
dusk. Tonight, you decide to ignore the whip,

and careen contrariwise. Reinless, you
feel only a single press of knees, light

enough to bear away. Each time a fence line
approaches, a kind voice whispers jump!

(after Joan Miró, 1927)

- Devon Balwit

Devon Balwit is the author of five chapbooks: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press), Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press), In Front of the Elements & Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Press), and The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry). Her individual poems can be found in places such as Muse A/Journal; The Inflectionist; Fifth Wednesday Plus; The Ekphrastic Review, and more.