Member-only story
Events in The Mind
*
Major (AKA “Major Deal” as mama named him) was a young and vicious stallion when dad bought him. He “couldn’t be broke”. The men who owned him previously had used a technique to break horses that involved beatings and tying his head tightly between two posts where they left him standing without food or water for 4 weeks. Major stood strong. When dad brought him home, he barreled through five strands of fence within minutes of arriving and he’d Bite and strike at anyone within distance. My dad never broke him…. he earned his heart. Every single day, for hours and hours dad worked to earn that abused horse’s trust. Love won and after two full years, Major allowed my dad to ride him. When dad would go out, Major would kiss him on the head over and over. They had a bond that only horse people could ever understand. It seemed only fitting to let Major say goodbye. — Janna Grapperhaus
SAVAGES by Dorianne Laux
They buy poetry like gang members
buy guns — for aperture, caliber,
heft and defense. They sit on the floor
in the stacks, thumbing through Keats
and Plath, Levine and Olds, four boys
in a bookstore, black glasses, brackish hair,
rumpled shirts from the bin at St. Vincent de Paul.
One slides a warped hardback
from the bottom shelf, the others
scoot over to check the dates,
the yellowed sheaves ride smooth
under their fingers.
One reads a stanza in a whisper…
