The Unicorn

The horn is not what makes the unicorn.
Certainly, it embodies magic and can mend
the most dire injury, but the unicorn

is more than that. It is poetry personified:
the flex of muscles beneath a skin of white,
that silky billow of mane and the lash

of a lion's tufted tail, that grace of motion
like the ripples of a pond or the shift
of clouds in the sky. If you seek magic

don't look to the horn, but the hooves,
how they shuffle and dance and how they
can stand on any ground and make it theirs

through a force of presence.
Magic is a unicorn in the forest, like a general
commanding the loyalties of twenty-thousand strong

by the boom of voice and a nod of head.
Look into those eyes, such dark depths
and it matters not if the skin is piebald or chestnut,

a Shetland or Clydesdale. The soul of a unicorn
is that stare as steady as the full moon
gazing upon the world and owning it whole.









Beth Cato's poetry can be found in The Christian Science Monitor, MindFlights, Every Day Poets, and on various pieces of paper crammed into her purse. She lives in Arizona, but is from Hanford, California. Her website is: www.bethcato.com.