My Father Saw
Laura Wisniewski
My father saw a small man
beat a horse to death.
The people crowded
Market Street.
The man wore
a furious moustache.
The horse’s shoulders rose
until they touched the sky.
(My father,
a small boy then, was always looking up.)
The horse’s head
dropped down
like a pear that bends the twig,
in love
with gravity.
The man’s whip snapped.
The horse exhaled
hard
shuddered, then
went down,
white eyes wide,
in dust.
The big boys ran for sticks, for brooms, for spades.
They formed a circle round.
They poked the horse
its sides, its eyes, its testicles.
A boy with a new beard
pierced the horse’s chest.
Blood flowed
from the broken dam
of the horse’s dignity.
My father turned away.
I’ll never get it from my mind,
My father said.
He shook his head.
We all were poor back then, without a dime
or hope.
Every step uphill,
My father said,
But still.
§
Laura Wisniewski is a poet and Yoga therapist. She lives and works in a small town in Vermont among family and friends. Although she has been writing for many years, Laura only started publishing in her sixties. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Fukushima Anthology, Poets and War, Hunger Mountain Review and others.