Marjorie Saiser: "The Muse Is a Little Girl"

The muse is a little girl, impossibly polite.
She arrives when you’re talking
or walking away from your car.
She’s barefoot, she stands
next to you, mute; she taps your sleeve,
not even on your skin, just touches the cloth
of your plaid shirt, touches it twice.
She feels with her index finger the texture
and you keep talking, or you don’t.
She will wait one minute. She is not hungry
or unhappy or poor. She goes somewhere else
unless you turn and look at her
and write it down. I’m kidding.
She’s a horse you want to ride, she’s a tall horse,
she’s heavy, as if she could bear armor.
You can’t catch her with apples.
I don’t know how you get on.
I remember my cold fingers in the black mane.

"The Muse Is a Little Girl" by Marjorie Saiser. Text as published in Lost in Seward County (The Backwaters Press, 2001). © Marjorie Saiser. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Art credit: Untitled image by photographer whose name is illegible in the upper left.