“Unbroken,” by Nick Flynn | The New Yorker

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As if the past were riding up to meet you
as if the past could ride a horse

as if the past were a horse wandering riderless
along a dusty road

as if the horse had never been ridden

/

They say a horse is broken when the rider
can stay on

they say the past is broken when you can
let go of it

I have broken with the past, she says

I have erased it from my phone
I have blindered my eyes from her eyes

/

I didn’t know the past was made of horses
I didn’t even call it a horse until now

I didn’t even call it strange
until I looked back on it

the past was a horse crossing a desert
a body draped over it

this is how we get the beloved home

/

Strange now to never hear a horse upon waking
or when out in the field

I didn’t know the past would come for me
I didn’t even call it the past until now

sometimes one gallops past
but no one else ever sees it

 
This is drawn from “Low.”

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