Episode 01: “Dead Horse Bay” - Suzanne Highland

“Dead Horse Bay” was first published in Iron Horse Literary Review #21.2, Summer 2019. For more of Suzanne Highland’s work, visit suzannehighland.com.

Dead Horse Bay

I plead into my phone
for you to pick up your phone.

Meanwhile, branches draped 
in Spanish moss and beaded garlands

glint from the gathering
of pine trees, outposts 

at the edge of the land
where slaughtered horses 

keep their graves. You pick up 
glass from the sand: 

brown bottle necks, broken 
amber ware, bluish 

shards stamped
TABANERO CIGARS.

You come up
from the water saying

wow, look at this, 
then hold out your hand

and I look at it.