Their boots kick against my brain when I enter childhood. The mare used to spook at her own shadow. This is why we put her down. We put her down in the sand dunes. Men at the polo fields, sternums softened by hooves of cocaine and disaster, we put her down together. I used to think their beards tasted of apple cider. I used to think manure was a welcome home. Now, I pass by the men downtown on their way to meetings with geologists and maps, and the little girl from their coked-up dream follows me saying, You put a bullet in me but forgot to kill the muscle memory of what they did.
Men Lean into Each Other at the Polo Fields
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick’s work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in MAGMA Poetry, Missouri Review, Salamander, Poetry London, Salt Hill, Plume, The Texas Observer, Four Way Review, and Passages North, among others. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College’s MFA program, Hardwick is Editor-in-Chief of The Boiler.