Dave Bonta's "Horse sense" is a short, compressed poem about the pull between instinct and words. It opens with a striking image: horses as "testimonies / put into flame." The animals seem to be living proof of something, burning with energy rather than explaining it. Then the poem turns to language. A "high word," perhaps a lofty or abstract one, is compared to a "false foot," something unsteady that can be "led either way." Grand speech, it suggests, can't be trusted to hold its footing.
The speaker then turns inward: "I am mixed." He moves "straight and hot," like the horses, yet he is divided. The last lines suggest he is bound to the "office music / in the heart," as if feeling is a duty he serves rather than chooses. The mood is intense and slightly uneasy, caught between physical certainty and the slipperiness of language. Much of the meaning stays open, which is part of its pull.