Kristin Garth: Your Father Buys A Pony But Not For You

Your Father Buys A Pony But Not For You

for Audrey Horne and Laura Palmer 

Girls working at counters often daydream.
You clutch a tree-printed sweater, finger 
seams like lines of rough hands, desire a scheme.
Men buy bad girls ponies, muffle their 
screams. Cream colored creatures you cannot 
abide, only soon-to-be-dead girls dare 
to ride. Two towheaded manes men spot 
easily in the dark. Death, a pale horse,
awaiting menarche, anarchy 
it makes of female lives in puberty 
when friends become a father’s fantasy.

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated poet from Pensacola and a sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked magazines like Five: 2: One, Yes, Glass, Luna Luna, Occulum, Drunk Monkeys, and other places. She is the author of eleven books of poetry including Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Puritan U (Rhythm & Bones Press) and Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir (The Hedgehog Poetry Press) and the forthcoming Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream (TwistiT Press, 2020) and Dewy Decimals (Arkay Artists, 2020). Follow her on Twitter and her website.