And then I thought, Can I have more



of this, would it be possible



for every day to be a greater awakening: more light,



more light, your face on the pillow



with the sleep creases rudely



fragmenting it, hair so stiff



from paint and sheet rock it feels



like the dirty short hank



of mane I used to grab on Dandy’s neck



before he hauled me up and forward,



white flanks flecked green



with shit and the satin of his dander,



the livingness, the warmth



of all that blood just under the skin



and in the long, thick muscle of the neck—



He was smarter than most of the children



I went to school with. He knew



how to stand with just the crescent



of his hoof along a boot toe and press,



incrementally, his whole weight down. The pain



so surprising when it came,



its iron intention sheathed in stealth, the decisive



sudden twisting of his leg until the hoof



pinned one’s foot completely to the ground,



we’d have to beat and beat him with a brush



to push him off, that hot



insistence with its large horse eye trained



deliberately on us, to watch—







Like us, he knew how to announce through violence



how he didn’t hunger, didn’t want



despite our practiced ministrations: too young



not to try to empathize



with this cunning: this thing



that was and was not human we must respect



for itself and not our imagination of it: I loved him because



I could not love him anymore



in the ways I’d taught myself,



watching the slim bodies of teenagers



guide their geldings in figure eights around the ring



as if they were one body, one fluid motion



of electric understanding I would never feel



working its way through fingers to the bit: this thing



had a name, a need, a personality; it possessed



an indifference that gave me



logic and a measure: I too might stop wanting



the hand placed on back or shoulder



and never feel the desired response.



I loved the horse for the pain it could imagine







and inflict on me, the sudden jerking



of head away from halter, the tentative nose



inspecting first before it might decide



to relent and eat. I loved



what was not slave or instinct, that when you turn to me



it is a choice, it is always a choice to imagine pleasure



might be blended, one warmth



bleeding into another as the future



bleeds into the past, more light, more light,



your hand against my shoulder, the image



of the one who taught me disobedience



is the first right of being alive.





