Coffin Bone

by LIA MASTROPOLO

The day after the mare discovered the pile of acorns raked and dumped in the back field
she didn’t eat, just rested her head in the grain-bin

 rested on her teeth I mean. Her head was heavy. When I tried to lift it for her
the drool trailed from her teeth. The vet was grave

 it’s up to her body now he said. There is a small bone in the hoof
that is easily turned by fever. Her body:

big, red-gold, roundly muscled at the shoulders and neck
I clung to every time we’d jog, slow-slow

 to the far end of the field where—she knew what was coming—we’d reach
the end of the track and wheel, bit in teeth, reins slack

 flying wind-blind each time thinking I might die here
back when death was just a story mother told me

 who loved the mare and hated the sound of hooves on dirt.
The drumroll sent her rushing to the window panicked, calling me

 to bring them in with a bucket of grain to quiet the galloping.
Once in a field of many horses I watched her carry

 rope and green halter when they started going all of them at once
the ones out front low, reaching, catlike over the uneven ground

 so it shook, the last in line nipping and bumping into each other
like thousand-pound goats aiming as a herd straight for her.

 Mother was afraid when they lipped her palm too hard for apples
but out there in the field alone with them

she moved like someone who has lived her whole life this way
as they streamed past her, eating up the earth. 

The coffin bone it’s called—smaller than my thumb
but deadly for an animal that lives by its feet—

it didn’t turn. The mare lifted her head from the grain bin
and walked out as we all did through the barn door

half rotted but half still good firm wood with only a little paint chipped
having walked this way all our lives.