One summer afternoon when nothing much

was happening, they were standing around

a tractor beside the barn while a horse

in the field poked his head between two strands

of the barbed-wire fence to get at the grass

along the lane, when it happened -- something

they passed around the wood stove late at night

for years, but never could explain -- someone

may have dropped a wrench into the toolbox

or made a sudden move, or merely thought

what might happen if the horse got scared, and

then he did get scared, jumped sideways and ran

down the fence line, leaving chunks of his throat

skin and hair on every barb for ten feet

before he pulled free and ran a short way

into the field, stopped and planted his hoofs

wide apart like a sawhorse, hung his head

down as if to watch his blood running out,

almost as if he were about to speak

to them, who almost thought he could regret

that he no longer had the strength to stand,

then shuddered to his knees, fell on his side,

and gave up breathing while the dripping wire

hummed like a bowstring in the splintered air.

[Reprinted by permission of Henry Taylor from The Flying Change published by LSU Press ©1985]