Black Beauty’s soul lived in my school,
the author’s former home,
phantom presence in the bike-shed,
a whiff of hay and leather,
hoof-prints on the hockey field
when the weather turned to snow,
nostalgia bites as I recall
two others I once knew,
Sabrina, tall, majestic, white,
Tom Thumb, a child’s delight,
cantering green fields of youth,
their names now lost to time –
Black Beauty’s name lives on.
‘Imprint’
