Miklós Borsik: Horses Don’t Write 

The cut flowers stink of pizza 

when there’s mixed delivery, and the packaging  

of the COVID test recalls the garlicky  

cucumber salad, like how dreams 

and waking can get mixed up together. 

I waver, still half-asleep, should I 

mention Wolt1 by name in my book, or 

just use the brand’s colour to hint at it.  

In the end I dream I’m a horse and  

they’re burning a double-U into my skin, 

but I don’t feel it, just hear the branding-iron 

sizzle. I’m galloping. Don’t even notice 

I’ve got hooves. By the time I do, we, 

the support teams’s darlings, are hurtling 

down an empty Andrássy,2 Shetland ponies, 

Kisber Felvers3 with beers. On our backs 

beans and Neapolitan wafers. 

For us, the tenements’ doors stand 

open; the city smells of stables,  

there’s blue rain dying our manes. 

Up on the screen, Krisztina and Jocó,  

two freshly christened raindrops, are  

lauded for their advertising value.  

Only the 6th District residents grumble. They 

carry manure up the service stairway: proof. 

But then they fling it out of the windows to  

spatter on our backs. I wake up,  

then fall asleep again. The company pulls out of 

our contract on account of a poem. I argue 

I couldn’t have written it. It’s true. Horses don’t write. 

Skip to content