Broken Saddle

I was more than seventeen hands above the ground
when Tiny’s black neck and ears suddenly rose
and the world broke from its rhythmic walk
to possibility of flight and fall
even as I stayed steady in my father’s grip,
my legs barely long
enough to bridge the saddle.
 
I swear it was my brother’s idea
to blotch our father’s saddle
with apricot paint–the can, the furtive giggling–
worse than the fireplace ashes we spread
across the living room. We were animals
free of past and future.
 
My father kept the saddle
long after his horse and mine. Perhaps
we thought we’d ride again. Sixty years on,
the saddle’s astride the back of my couch,
the scrapes and shadows of my defacement
still visible, the cantle worn through,
skirt edges curled and girth cracked
but still a piece of work, of stitch and nail,
cut edge and curve.
 
In photos moved from his study wall to mine,
man and horse jump for trophies,
my brother and I not yet born or imagined.
My father’s hair dark like the horse, mane
and coattails flying, every plane and muscle
of Satan’s Holiday as glossy as boots and saddle,
supple, unblemished, for one second all
above the earth with unbroken time ahead.