Her Pegasus Her world is an armchair, a window and a blossoming cherry tree. Strangers come and brush her hair, leave it lying grey as dusk across her breast, and in her palm a handful of tiny moons. She dreams she is a kite caught in the cherry tree, with the cherry tree tangled tightly to the earth, and the earth turning without a care of her. Night or day, it’s all the same to her. But then one night a mist of breath on the glass – a dampness there, then not there – and a sound, a pounding, half-hoof, half-heart and eyes at the window dark and deep and liquid. Blossom-blanketed, bridled, the white horse waits for her, moonlight-dappled, beneath the cherry tree. And whether loosed from the sea or conjured from childhood, her Pegasus paws the air, dove-breasted. She folds her fingers through the fabled mane and the creature’s wings unfurl into a breaking wave.  They are star-bound and climbing from moon to moon and slipping between constellations and sending planets spinning – until the earth becomes a memory of an echo in a seashell. And then there is only brilliant black. A handful of moons thrown across the sky. Shattered stars blossoming in the silence. The earth endlessly turning. A feather falling. Jo Senior
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