Page 19 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

2017, Ithaca, NY

When Sonny’s hoof had to be carved open to drain, we tried fettering him the old cowboy

way. Tie one foot up. He hopped so hard he upended farrier and iron tools three times.

Finally, his body in spasms, he faced the farrier and they stared eye to eye. He could

have bitten off the man’s face. Instead, horse turned away in a hundred- year-old

resignation. Sometimes they take the long view, backward and forward. Horses have

history. Sometimes they won’t give up, both would rather die fighting: farrier to save

horse, horse to be free.

My New World

The placentas used on humans in stem cell surgery are taken from mares who stand

tied in rows of stalls their whole short lives. A harvest of placentas, beginning the

moment they give life to their foals, who are taken away and killed. Stalls like the rows of

the temporary shelters trucked in for the Olympic games to house the prostitutes.

America, where they, us, still, again, are colluding in killing every living thing.

Notes

Based on my experience, the horse illustrates the best and worst of animal/human

collaboration. Horses don’t lie, they don’t hunt or kill, and they respond to kindness. They

live in herds. Wild horses are being killed in the thousands on the Plains of America

where they lived before people, and were eradicated once before by people.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lou Robinson lives in Ithaca NY with two horses and a dog. She

has published in numerous small press magazines, and is the
recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant in writing.

Her novel, Napoleon’s Mare, was co-winner of a Fiction

Collective best book of the year award. She is currently a

freelance book jacket designer for several university and small
press publishers.