From the Fishouse

Isaac Murphy

When I’m up there dodging mud and sprinting to the post
I don’t think about winning. Don’t think the horse do either.
I can’t even hear the crowd cussing me hard and loud

for leading my mount pass their first or second choice.
I never consider how easy it is to fall out of the saddle.
How trying to dodge the thunder ‘n lightning

of a thoroughbred’s hoofs would be like tiptoeing through
a cotton gin. When a thousand pounds of horse
is on the other end, your rib cage is just a bird’s nest,

your head no safer than a watermelon kissing a knife.
It takes runaway-slave nerve to risk riding that fast and fall,
but it takes more to just lay still and leave it up to the horses
to see you curled up in the mud and step around you.