DECEMBER 2009

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Hippology
By Mark Neely, Oct 08, 2009

Remember how our horses shined? At the restaurant I’d look you over through my horse’s eyes. Swivel my gaze to a small white flower with its fallen petal, the unlit candle, that laconic waiter in his tawny stallion. The bartender lined glasses with a light hoof, filled them with a waterfall from her shaker. That bartender! I dreamed of getting in her horse, of being together where we barely fit. I guess you might have slipped inside that waiter’s horse a time or two. Some things I’ll never know.

Our horses lapped up mushroom soup. Of braised lamb and potatoes made quick work. They got frisky, rattled silverware, shook their urges with the crystal. The waiter brought more wine. The bartender leaned to wipe a spill. I wished we could be inside her horse together, but no one spoke such things back then. Would you have died if we invited the waiter into yours? Inside my horse there was room to ponder. No matter how lathered up he got, inside I was calm. As if sitting at a desk.

We ran together, made a ruckus dancing, galloped home and knocked into the coffee table on our way to the bedroom where our horses heaved in the corner, drinking deeply from their trough. They opened their haunch doors. We fell pale and shivering to the floor.