MARY RAINSFORD
Dead Horse
I tell you
how much blood
is in a horse.
I tell you
a horse got hit by a car
outside my apartment.
I tell you
how I couldn’t identify
what I was seeing –
the creature split open
seeping back into the earth
as traffic swerved
to miss it.
I tell you
how a man sat rocking
beside the horse
back and forth, back and forth, back and forth
‘I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.’
I tell you
we sat there
watching something he loved die.
I tell you
we wept
over, into
the horse’s body.
I tell you
how long it took
for the crane to arrive,
how it hoisted and hauled
the horse away
and nobody knew
where the horse was going.
I tell you
I loved the horse
because its eyes
told me it knew
it was dying
and we always love
what is leaving us.
You tell me
about that one time
you fell off a horse
but you didn’t get hurt.
You got straight back
in the saddle.