Symbiosis / Em Gray

Em Gray is a neurodivergent poet from Brighton and this haptic, ticklish poem was commended in the Forward Prize this year. Simple as it is, it reads with such inner balance and intensely 'felt' images - " a moment's velvet" or "placing/chandeliers" - that I really love it.

I've seen a horse

take the soft folds of a dog's scruff

between her corn kernel teeth.

He, quite forgetting the bones of himself,

dangled some seconds

before being lowered down.

The care of that horse

as if she were practised in placing

chandeliers, or weighing sacks of truffles

with her mouth

and how the dog paused

as if to reassure the horse

of no awkwardness between them

after that solemn transaction of theirs

in which (I like to think)

no liberties were taken

save a horse who wished

a moment's velvet on her grassy tongue,

an old dog's wish to float.