She's not the first woman to hang
onto marriage by the slim gold
chain of a tennis bracelet

or the firm upholstered seat of an occasional
chair before her fire
that occasionally looks

a lot like a horse she once saw in Siena racing.
She was there on the third stone
of her mother's ring, a diamond

child paying its way. Horses and riders
waited for the sun to go anywhere, unreliable
except in Costa Rica at 5:30

when monotony drags it from view
every day. The woman loved this particular horse,
the bronze of a last sky

running. The small jockey melted
onto his back. Hooves on cobblestone
struck cathedral bells in the piazza.

She wondered if blood slashed at her wrists
would coagulate or if she would bleed to death
alone. The horse broke his leg

at the tender joint above hooves like a woman's
slim wrist.
Have you ever heard a horse scream?