Maybe I’m just a horse
That somebody said
That somebody said
They thought had a horn
on its head.
They said it seemed to behave differently:
Better than the rest.
Maybe a rumour about a creature from far away
With a tusk, a horn
Something like a horse but
not a horse.
The description changed to fit
the perceptions of the people
hearing the story.
And those people knew about horses.
Expected a horse.
Or perhaps there was a bull whose horns grew strangely.
Twining towards the centre of the forehead
Changing the shape
of the cranial cavity
And this trained the brain differently
caused the bull to act in ways
the people there perceived
as gentleness, nobility
And because people associated
Nobility with horses, not cattle
They changed the story.
And people brought the tusks of narwhals home
From voyages
But a story about a whale with a horn
Was too strange for the people
Who just wanted a horse
to be better than other horses.
Maybe what I am
Is the idea
That something can be better
Than what we expect.
But we still want it to be
What we expect.
So it has to be a horse,
Because you’re expecting a horse.
And that is why you’ll never find me.
Because I’m never the what you expect.
I’m the something better.
Tom Juniper Poetry 