"What You See While Driving"

February 11th, 2026.

Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York

By Ava Brunton

I don’t see it, but you do.

You catch the wet

huff of breath after the horse jerks its head,

fogging a whole second into existence, you taste

the sweet, sweet mouthful of grass, still

warm from its teeth, and tell me the fly lands

soft as a fingertip on the horse’s eyeball.

Little legs sticking to the slick globe and the slow

stubborn—blink, blink—as forgiveness.

They gather around the transmission tower just

before night, a frail wooden fence crouches near.

Splinters anticipating blood and hide. You say

horses love the hum, the static throat singing

a beacon. I don’t see it, but you do.

The crash. The body folding into the foal beside it.

The knees buckle, pop, I heard

the wind, but you saw the mouth open

silent and wide—tender in the places that bend first.

You assume it has prayed to a horse

god, wire-veins and cold manes, you think—and later,

I agree—to graze beneath powerlines, to drink

metal, helpless,

sweet and warm, can be

the only prayer carried to wherever

those wires run. Much further on

you yawn like an animal.

Like an animal, I see it longer.