The Breaking

The Breaking

Dressed in chaps and boots
with my legs stiff as splints,
I stood in inches of dust
smelling leather, old wood,
hay and horses. My father
stood next to me, his hand
ever ready to snatch my eager
shoulder should I so much
as edge too close. The barn-cat
mewed from the bench,
her paws like snowflake prints
in the brown dust. The air
was thick, my eyes were stinging,
and everything was silently watching
as a great black creature
from some other world
roared and smashed into everything
and nothing, his entire body
thrashing as he ran
as if to save a life, every muscle
and vein moving fluidly
and visibly beneath what seemed
such a thin and slippery coat
of charcoal black. Wild eyes
glassy and unseeing, nostrils
flaring--and on his back a man,
not clinging but riding,
his wide red face screwed in concentration.
My teacher, whose thickly accented
sarcasm had sent older,
more experienced students
home in tears. He scared me
and I admired him as he held,
firmly, to this wild animal,
around and around until they both gave out.

Later, I would clean off
and go to church, shampoo
and detergent hiding the tastes
and smells of the barn as my fingers
fluttered on the hymnal.
Later still, a disputed source--
a falling branch,
an unbroken new horse--
would startle Spectra
as she brought me past
the back-right door,
and I was thrown
onto my back,
where I called for mommy
but it was my teacher
telling me to breathe.
He was a paramedic.

I lost my nerve
and stopped riding half a year later.
Wide-eyed still,
I watch muscles twist
under fragile,
beautiful skin
now, from far away.