“She’s dead.”

My husband pronounced these words
early this morning, I had found him asleep
on the couch. “When,” I asked.

“Around midnight.”

The stake of reality, of fragility, of loss,
slams into my heart, for my daughters,
my husband, for sweet life’s mortality.

Dead horse crying.

We decide, they will be told after school.
He leaves before they wake. I feel…
glassine, stretched to futile nothingness,
razor’s thin edge proceeds to slash
my emptied surface.

The oldest daughter arises, her horse
is young and healthy. My mask
is in place. She calls her dad.
“She not doing well,” he tells her,
I hear her soft sobs as she heads to the shower.

(She’s dead,” echoes in my mind.)

I awaken the younger child, only eight,
she doesn’t want to eat or go to school.
She wants to rub her horse’s belly,
“I know how, mom, it helps her.”

(“She’s dead.”)

I have to be careful, hating the manipulation,
the lie. She calls her dad, the story is retold.
He is working on the necessary disposal,
he stayed with Santana, until she died.

(“Around midnight.”)

“Snack bar today,” I announce, switching
mind’s path, we decide on pizza, Gatorade
and a brownie, I continue to juggle her emotions.
After dropping the older child off, “Calling on Angels”
plays on the radio, bringing tears to my eyes.

("She’s dead.”)

We finish getting her ready for school,
she wants to go immediately to the Corrals
when she gets out, to be with her horse…her horse,
lying dead right now...I need a reason...I

can’t grasp the suddenness, not such a small thing,
an animal’s life. I must grapple, again,
with reality’s indifference, explain
the unexplainable…watch my daughter
losing a piece of her innocence, absorb
her pain, feel fresh scars on my heart.

Dead horse, crying.

Erin Moen
9/23/03
Copyright 2003 ©