Long days shut up behind your screens

are high noon for the meeting horse

to be everywhere, yet nowhere with a camera.

That indistinct noise that cuts across the speaker,

that burst of feedback that seems to bounce

across the faces in boxes? The meeting horse

is on its way. It does not matter that you

cannot ride a beast of burden, nor that your

makeshift study is indoors, nor that you

never quite explain what the purpose of the

meeting horse should be. The meeting horse is

coming. You send a message to the meeting

chat that you’ve been called away a moment.

The meeting horse is here.
Your husband says: please don’t talk about

this in public. You say, that is not an attitude

that gets a visit from the meeting horse and

anyway, you don’t know my meetings. Your children

say, don’t you mostly run your meetings? You say,

the meeting horse is a good way to end my meetings.

You don’t tell your mother about the meeting horse

since she was a few streets down from the real

horse from which you fell in 1984. It was winter

and the Ōtautau mud came up around you in a

bowl of three dimensions. You were bruised but

not badly injured, a condition which persists

today. You look at the faces gridbound on

the screen, hear the voices that at all pitches
sound like reeds. High noon, oh horse, high noon.