Broke Like Horses
- Cathexis Northwest Press
- 18 hours ago
- 1 min read
By: Elisa Carlsen
not saddle broke
but broke ass
upside down
pissing time
too big
for your britches
girl, someday
someone is gonna
knock you up
or knock you out
and what are you
gonna do then?
I’m gonna run
like horses
until there is
no gallop
no ground
no canter
no star
no planet
no X,
no Y
no U
Elisa Carlsen was born and raised in the high desert of Northern Nevada. A contemplative poet and artist, her writing has appeared in Lunch Ticket, Scapegoat Review, Carte Blanche, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere. Elisa’s poetry has won awards from the Writers Guild of Astoria and the Oregon Poetry Association and nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Elisa is a Poetry Editor at New American Press and author of Cormorant (Unsolicited Press 2023). Her poetry film, The Basin, was selected for the 2025 Nature & Culture International Poetry Film Festival in Denmark.