The long way home

I take the road

that adds twenty minutes.

The one that goes past the field

with the one broken fence.

No one asks me why.

I wouldn't know

what to say if they did.

Something about the light.

Something about the way

the field sits in the afternoon,

unproductive and unhurried,

not trying to be anything.

There's a horse sometimes.

Grey, enormous, calm.

Standing exactly where it stands

like it has always stood there.

Like it will always stand there.

Like fields and grey horses

are part of the permanent structure

of some world I need.

The broken fence has been broken

for as long as I've been taking this road.

No one fixes it.

No one seems to mind.

I mind, a little.

I worry for the horse.

But the horse never leaves,

so maybe the fence isn't the point.

Maybe nothing ever was.

Maybe the field is fine.

Maybe I'm the one

who needed the long way home.

Twenty extra minutes

with the field and the horse

and the evening coming down

on something I can't name yet.

I get home later.

The food is sometimes cold.

I don't apologize.

I just describe the horse.