Poem for My Daughter
by Peggy Towers

She's that slip of a girl with my curly hair.
She stretches tall, straddles the large, white pony.
Those long legs that wrap all the way around the pony's barrel, are my
mother's.
When she spurs the stubborn pony
forward over the jumps, that stern set of her square chin is her
father's.
When the pony stops dirty and flings her headfirst to earth, when the
slender stalk of her neck narrowly misses the rail, when she groans
and rises to her feet, takes a leg up onto the pony and gallops
straight back to that huge oxer, the courage it takes is all hers.