Laura's Crush (2005)

I asked my mother if they’d shoot
the white horse
that reared up on Thursday.
No. She said
they don’t do that anymore.
She almost laughed.
Rueful I guess is what we call it
when my mother’s mouth
is half up towards something silly
and part way tucked in
to accommodate the wound.
I didn’t intend to mourn
the white horse.
That’s not why I asked.
I don’t even know it’s name
or if it has a gender.
But what am I supposed to want
for the animal
that reared up so high
it fell over backwards
and crushed my little sister?
I can’t imagine the future
for that horse.
It’s ugly now too.
The blood from my sister’s belly
didn’t stay
just on the back of the saddle.
It stained
the top of the horse.
White is hard to clean.
I can’t stand to picture
that horse running:
feet high and forelock blowing.
I think there’s usually a breeze
out there where the stable is.
Southern California is
three thousand miles
away from me.
I’d like a big red sore
permanently imprinted
on the back of that white horse.
It fell over backwards
and crushed my sister.
I guess it’s good they don’t shoot them.
Otherwise I’d have to imagine
a use for all it’s parts.
Right now I can’t remember
if we still make glue
out of horse’s hooves,
if we still make mattresses
with horse’s hair,
if we make cat food
with horse’s flesh.
It’s hard enough
to remember
that my little sister
Laura-boo
got crushed.
right in her middle.
It’s hard
to remember that.
So for me to want a shooting—
an assassination
of the white horse
that reared up so high
it fell over backwards
and crushed my little sister—
is a minor hard thing
relative to the remembering
I need to do.
The thing is
I want that white horse dead.
I can remember this easily.
And wanting a dead horse
violates all my principles.
What if the horse’s body
were just left there
after the assassination?
If that white horse’s body
was of no use to anyone,
not even a first grade
‘glue-the-circle-next-to’ art project,
and if it was me
that made it true,
then I’d have to totally
revamp my ideas about
who it is I am.
Because I am not
a violent wasteful person.
But that horse
reared up so high
it fell over backwards
and crushed my sister.

I’ve been with her
since the accident happened.
Holding her hand
and kissing her forehead.
Laura-boo has an amazing forehead.
her bangs never hang down straight.
Her hair is kind of wispy
in the front.
There’s a soft place
between the wisps.
I’ve been turning her hands over,
using my fingernail
to remove a half moon of dirt.
It’s stuck under the nail
of her left ring finger.
I’m preparing her hand
for her husband
when he comes.
I lean down
over Laura-boo’s forehead.
My two lips touch
between her hair wisps.
Her forehead
is unusually cold.
She’s always been so warm.
But since the horse
fell over backwards
Laura-boo’s skin is chilly.
I’m good at pretending
so I tell her that no,
it’s not a lot of blood.
I say she’s just kind of wet.
I hold her hands.
both of them.
Sometimes I kiss
her dirty fingernails.
It’s hard to clean them.
I don’t want to hurt her.
I’ve been with her
since the accident happened.
I should have been there before.
Maybe I would have known something.
Maybe I would have said something.
Maybe I would have intuited something.
I could have stopped
the horse before
it reared up so high
it fell over backwards
and crushed my sister.
But Southern California
is three thousand
miles away from me.

I’ve been with my sister
ever since the accident.
That’s a slight exaggeration
but when Laura-boo called me
on her cell phone—
she was laying on a stretcher
in the emergency room
and couldn’t find the button
to push for a nurse—
she reached across
and yanked me out of my body.
Thank goodness
I can walk through my life
without really being
all the way in it.
I flew to Laura-boo
faster than a car.
I flew faster
than a cross country train.
I flew faster than an airplane.
I was holding her
and gently kissing her forehead
through her wispy hair
—backwards in time—
so she wasn’t alone
in the ambulance.
I’ve been with her
every second
since the accident happened.
My body’s been here though.
It doesn’t take consciousness
to make a hummus sandwich.
It doesn’t require presence
to separate the darks
from the whites
and push the button
on the washing machine.
The button is right here
and I can reach it easily.
It’s a small challenge
to remember the detergent
and the appointment
I made last week
to check the brakes on my van.
But these details aren’t hard
like remembering
that Laura-boo
got crushed by a horse.
Getting crushed hurts
a lot.
My sister
has not really been alone.
I’ve been with her
since the accident happened.

For the first two days
I ride solo.
It’s just me
holding our childhood.
It’s common knowledge
that during near-death events,
the injured person
flashes pictures from their past.
Laura-boo hasn’t said
anything about dying
but I’m deluged with
her kaleidoscopic memories.

I see her in her jodhpur boots.
She has faded brown riding pants
with special reinforcement pads
to protect the inside
of her knees.
The pants hang down
over the outside of her boots
and the elastic sits under the heel.
Her riding cap perches on her head.
Her wispy bangs
peek out underneath.
The brim of the cap
obstructs any kissing
and her toes are pointed in.
Laura-boo is tiny
and she’s also pidgin-toed.
She’s grinning so big
that her cheeks dimple
around the strap
from the riding cap.
She’s holding the ribbon
she won at the horse show.
She’s clutching it with two hands.
The blue and yellow tails
hang right down her middle.
I guess the grand champions
are usually taller than Laura-boo
because the bottom
of my little sister’s ribbon
is touching the dirt.
She doesn’t have
her black show jacket on anymore
and the sun is so brilliant
it glints off her teeth.

I’ve been with my little sister
every second
since she called me
on her cell phone.
It’s been like living
in a slide show.

Now I’m outside the barn
my father built in our back yard.
I’m looking at my sister’s feet.
she’s standing on a bucket.
She’s wearing black rubber barn boots
with blue jeans hanging over.
Her palomino pony Camelot
is stamping his right front foot.
The shadows from the outside
fence boards
blend with the cross-ties
holding Camelot’s head.
His mane whips as Laura-boo yelps.
Then my little sister growls.
Up by their two heads
it’s hard to see.
It’s all in shadow
but my little sister’s head
and her pony Camelot’s head
are definitely side by side.
I can honestly swear
that my little sister Laura-boo
lifts up Camelot’s long blond mane
before she bites him on the neck.
Hard and long.
I see her heels
lift from the bucket
with the effort.
Camelot’s head is shaking.
jerking up and down.
And his two feet are stamping.
Laura-boo’s growling
and Camelot’s stamping
crescendo with my awe.
My kitten Cory falls off the fence
and Camelot never ever bites
my sister again.
No one hurts my little sister.
Not more than once.

I’m with my Laura-boo
every second
since the horse
reared up so high
it fell over backwards
and crushed her.
I see the pink carpet.
it matches the coverlets
on my sisters’ twin beds.
Laura and Lisa Ann share
one bedroom one bedtime
one thought one pink color.
They even share
one name.
Laura and Lisa Ann
are ‘the little girls’
to anyone who needs
to make a reference.

My room was across the hall.
I used to sneak
into their room a lot though.
My two sisters
really knew how to play.
Horsey was the best game
and as the oldest
I was the best horse.
Lisa Ann always fell off first
but Laura-boo rode
like a cowgirl.
She gripped tight
no matter how I twisted and lunged.
She stayed on so well
that sometimes
me the horse
had to fall down
in a collapsed puddle of laughing.

Nobody can shake off
my little sister.
There’s not a pony
in the whole wild west
that can buck off Laura-boo.

I’ve thought of a use
for the white horse’s body.
After the assassination
I could create a team.
The white horse
who reared up so high
it fell over backwards
and crushed my little sister,
and me
the errant failure of a pacifist
working for a better world.
We could prop up the body
of the dead white horse.
It would be necessary
to film the head
hanging down
with the mane arranged
in a wispy sort of do,
and plenty of forehead showing.
A hair stylist would need
to be on hand
to make sure that my hair matched—
even though my forehead
is low and flat
(not like my little sister
Laura-boo)—
so I could stand
side by side
head to head
with the dead body
of the white horse
who crushed my little sister.
We’d need to match
for the cameras.
We could make a team.
The horse who crushed her
and the big sister
who authorized the murder.
I could give a little talk.
I could practice my face
in the mirror
before the first take.
We could hire my mother
to coach my lips:
rueful I guess is what we call it
when my mother’s mouth
is half up towards something silly
and part way tucked in
to accommodate the wound.
The show could be the one
that preaches to the masses
about how retribution
doesn’t work.
See. I could gesture
with panache—see:
when you shoot back,
you get a body
that’s of no use
to anyone.
It’s a waste I’d say.
It’s better to use words.

I have been with my sister.
every single breath
since the accident.
My breaths have been hard to take.
Especially the ones I breathed
in the pot holder aisle of HomeGoods
on day three.
I was looking for something
to send to my little sister.
A special perfect something
for my cowgirl
who got crushed.
It can’t be something
she has to move for.
I can’t send her anything
that will make her laugh.
Giggling could kill her
through the broken ribs
and fractured pelvis.
I can’t pick something that will evoke
femininity or sexuality.
Lisa Ann told me her labia
is unrecognizable.
This is hard shopping.
It would be harder though
if I’d killed the horse
who crushed my sister.
If I’d done that
I’d be a woman shopping
without my principles.
A consumer
without my values.
Just a body
moving through the store.

I’ve been with Laura-boo
every moment
since the accident.
When the white horse
reared up so high
it fell over backwards
and crushed my little sister,
I left my body here
and flew for three thousand miles
in a fraction of a second
so I could hold Laura-boo’s hand
in the hospital.
I took her back her past.
I passed it to her
with my heart.
In case she was thinking
of letting it go.

It could have been the cell phones.
Mine rang near the pot holders.
Is that you Laura-boo?
I whisper is this really you?
I don’t ask my little sister
if her insides are back in.
I don’t ask my sister
if all her tubes are re-attached.
I just gasp
I love you my Laura-boo.
and I swear to god
I cry so hard
my tears shoot straight
out of my eyeballs.