- before I knew about movies and how they could make you laugh
- or cry or laugh and cry
- before I knew about noble hearts, courageous hearts, sweet hearts
- and people with just plain, bad blood, honey
- I knew about horses
- before I knew about form
- the shape things take
- or are given for the sake of appearance.
- I knew about horses laying in my bed at night
- with night caps on and striped pajamas, laughing at daddy,
- or playing basketball with my brothers,
- each missed hoop another letter of that name
- HORSE
- leaping barbed wire fences
- sometimes breaking a leg
- then my dad would have to shoot it
- so he would. before I knew
- about school, I knew a horse could herd sheep:
- cut them off and keep them together
- before I knew about it
- I was riding a horse
- the wind tore down my throat
- whipped my lungs
- I didn’t know how to stop
- so I fell off
- but my brother laughed
- and I said damn you for the first time
- and he grabbed me and threw me back on that horse
- and he was too old for my dad to spank
- before I knew how to ride I rode
- and when I learned to stop, it wasn’t the same as that first time
- when I damned my brother, raced away,
- him standing on the fence not laughing anymore
- and our father running, stumbling down the road,
- yelling Whoa, boy! Whoa!