We four horses of the Apocalypse
You know our riders
So much said of them, but what of us?
Do you think we materialized
Fully formed—no, we were born
We gamboled and grew and grazed
In mystical pastures tinged with
Prophecy and blood

My sweet siblings: white, you know that color
So many choose white steeds for goodness
Kings and lone rangers—and sometimes a racehorse
Is born that rushes bright white among the
Grays you once mistakenly thought were white
Red you know too, chestnut like gleaming copper
Or dark like liver, the blood running off it
Brown and red both and then there's black
Also a popular choice for those who wish to
Show who they are, what they can do
A black steed says so much

And then there's me: the pale horse
What is pale? You have wondered
Admit it, I have seen the paintings drawn of
We four, whether we burst from the canvas
Practically breathing fire or walk in a more sedate
Group, ready to tear through the world, but not yet, not yet
I am different in each: steel gray in some, dun in others
Buckskin, palomino and others make me a ghostly figure
Transparent but strong enough to carry death
Strong enough to be the last horse, to follow the others
To the bloody, apocalyptic end
They are on to something, these last ones

You wish to know what pale is? Poor John had no idea
When he wrote his words, for plastic did not exist yet
Something that could be seen through
But not smashed like glass or disturbed like water
Something that endures, that poisons slowly and
Without a care: I am all colors and I am none
Of all my siblings, I am the most subtle
And the most powerful, the others rely on
Their riders to take and kill, they follow their cues
My rider sits gently, feet dangling, reins loose
For I will do the work as you scatter me all on your own
Death need do nothing for his time to come
Other than talk to me of times less ugly
When he too was young, in a mystical place
Of prophecy and blood