Horseshoe
Not hanging over a door, but found
where lost, nails still in, rusty now,
dirt caked. Maybe running in mud,
loose shoe shed, horse hobbled
a bit, but then even the farmer
knew how to shoe, so, shoe replaced,
the horse went on. Could be near
100 years in the ground before it
poked up last spring. Here it is now,
the shoe the horse had lost returned,
though of no use to ghosts, or living either.
An old rusty shoe that maybe will find
its place as others do: on the shed
over the door. But, think now,
is it open up, or open down?
Matthew J. Spireng’s 2019 Sinclair Poetry Prize-winning book Good Work was published in 2020 by Evening Street Press. An 11-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is the author of two other full-length poetry books, What Focus Is and Out of Body, winner of the 2004 Bluestem Poetry Award, and five chapbooks. He was the winner of The MacGuffin’s 23rd Annual Poet Hunt Contest in 2018 and the 2015 Common Ground Review poetry contest. Website: matthewjspireng.com.
