He was an Appaloosa stallion.  In another time

And place he’d been ridden but no one had ever

Broken his spirit, and so he let her saddle him,

Knowing what he would do.

And halfway across the pasture he reared up,

His front legs trying to climb the air and she

Trying not to and holding on as he dropped

And bucked and reared again past vertical

Onto his back, pinning her legs and breath

Under the weight him.

He was still writhing and rolling as though

He was up to nothing more than a dust bath

As I ran and kicked him and pulled her free.

Tomorrow she'd call the man who sold him

To take him again.

That evening the stallion stood along the fence

By the orchard, withers and nostrils quivering

With with the scent of September windfall apples.

As I filled a bucket with the best of the bruised fruit

He waited at the fence, calmer than he'd ever been.

I held one in the palm of my hand and he shied,

Then took it in his soft lips and gently bit it in half.

And in that moment he must have tasted something

He never knew existed, some pure ecstasy, the juice

Running down his chin.

There was a sad soft look in his eyes that to this day

I have no word for, any more than he did for apple.

When the last one was gone he turned and ambled

Slowly away from me and from the gift of a hunger

He never knew he had.  And I walked away thinking

I'd done him no kindness.