Cover photo by poet

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Atlas

Calanais I

You passaged the avenue,
touched the stones the way
you’d brush the shoulder of an old friend.

You listen to the way they moan in the wind
about how their days have been—
This day was the longest of the year.

Try to measure such things in minerals
that endure the daily avenues of your life—
corridors in a tower of institutional gray,
the halls you pace like a captive animal.

Calanais II

Haul the stone onto your shoulders,
it will bear down against your spine,
pushing you deeper into the moor.

Can two women hold up the world?
The sheep bleat their skepticism.

I’ve blocked the ram lamb
anointed with red paint.
He darts past, complaining.

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M. Frost © 2026

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Cover photo taken by author

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  Bucephalus

  The horse with the mark, one eye blue,
  forehead star-blazed, forelock dark as coal.
  Alexander ‘gentled him,’ the legend goes,
  but what if, instead, the great king gazed
  into that celestial eye, as into a moon’s orb,
  saw himself reflected, so irresistible a sight,
  he sank to his knees in obeisance?

       the horse inside me

has grown old
                 withers hollow
joints thick knobs
                 once-black fetlocks
gone to gray
                 but hooves large
as bowls remain
                 the sound they make
at a run still
                 thunder

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M. Frost © 2026