was a child obsessed over horses, sketched horses in my spiral
notebooks, horses in pencil and rainbow felt tip markers,
horses with princesses on their backs, spirit horses, horse that
whisked me away from my horsy mother, mother who mostly
spoke horse for hours every Saturday, HORSE, the game my
father and I played, horsing around, tossing the basketball
from the upstairs window, horse with the long tail dragging
the ground, horse barn where I was fingered by the boy on the
hay bale, hoarse throat giving me that throaty voice I loved,
horse neck I clung to after he spooked at a field of cows, horse
quick-turning on a dime, Appaloosa horse that took my breath
away, horse racing along the river slough until my eyes ran,
horse always needing to be in the lead, horse making damn
sure we’re ahead of the pack, even after the cinch
breaks, horse dust I breathed into my asthmatic lungs, horse
I brushed and curried anyway, horse other side of the stone
fences on Aran Island, horse nickering as we slept on moss,
horse staring at us all night while we dozed in the horse barn
at the horse show where you painted the hooves of your horse
with Hoof Black and Polish and a coat of shine, shined the silver
on your horse’s bridle and saddle trim, plaited in the evening
and unbraided your horse’s mane in the morning, while I fed my horse
the Camp Fire mints in my pocket, horse who liked bananas and Pepsi,
horse who trips kicking up his horse feet on a sunny February morning,
horse racing across the open frosty field, slips in the slickness
on the hill, horse that couldn’t horse his way back onto his horse
feet, who tried for six horse hours, and couldn’t rise, horse,
and the bullet that took him to horse heaven, horse I painted
on a memorial plate for my mother years later, horse I rode
and rode and rode and rode. Horse who took me away. Horse.

—Ronda Piszk Broatch

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