For you, I’ll recall walking
to the barn to ride my horse, Biscuit.
1991. I wore a white blouse
that tied at the throat
and mom’s brown leather coat
with tangles of suede leather
dangling from the sleeves.
I was thirteen. See the camel-
coloured jodhpurs,
the tall black riding boots,
my brown hair tied up in a pony
tail, and me taking big steps
through the suburb?
It didn’t take long to cut
out to the fields where
mom boarded the thoroughbred.
I went there after school,
but sometimes I’d arrive and
realize what I’d forgot,
so I’d tack him up and ride him back
through the subdivision
where horses couldn’t go, careful
not to leave a hoofprint
on the neighbours’ lawn.
I’d tie him to a streetlight
and go inside.
For you, I’d like to take
a picture of that. The empty
subdivision at 3:15 in the afternoon
on a Wednesday; those rows
of identical homes, brand new
as they all were then; and
those pastel colours — you know
the kind — and the beige
vinyl siding and the brand new green
lawns like postage stamps
licked and stuck to the earth out front.
No trees, just a razed cow field
where developers built and
we moved in. This picture
is huge. Pull back. See my bay tied
by the reins to the street lamp?
From here, he is small, impatient,
wanting to snip at the grass
with his enormous flat white teeth —
but he can’t, he’s caught up.
He lifts one wide front hoof and
brings it down on the asphalt,
a clop like two heavy blocks
coming together in an auditorium.
He stamps that hoof again
and again, my big dark horse, waiting
for me to come on back
outside.
