--they whinny as they go
By Claire Ervin
I.
The lupin had bloomed just weeks before
in early May, the hours were long and the weather less fair.
A donkey had been born, to celebrate the impending summer
heralded by the buzzing honeybee.
We were sipping on the sweetness of our days,
but one only knows the highest of highs
in the forthcoming lowest of lows.
To that precipice we arrived, us as three.
In our lazy afternoon, we watched like a pair,
us as just the hands that help
having spent our day working without pause
only to rest our backs and legs in the shade.
Our leader of three carried on, saddled up high
astride her partner, more friend than tool.
He tucked his knees beneath himself,
ever careful for a 1,300 pound beast,
to land and drag at the bit. Too pushy, too strong
for one like him to refuse to stop.
And then he stumbled.
Crashing like Icarus, the pair fell
onto a now heap of white wood, a failed fence,
his body was her burden between them and the ground.
But he stood once more while she remained.
From our perch we ran, she to him and I to her
while invoking every name I had ever known.
Swaying and circling, he wandered as if lost
looking for a place to lay down once again
while we rose to catch him, hold onto something fleeting
without being crushed. It happened within moments, hours it felt
but seconds it’d been—
perhaps that’s what startled me most of all.
The air ran dry to choke me on my spit
so screams escaped without sound.
At twelve, there was so much more of him.
He sank with a groan. His eyes were wild, his breath ragged
while we freed him from bridle and girth.
A single sound filled that empty arena.
That haunting lilt escaped him
in his last few moments of breath,
he called out—he cried his very last song.
To no avail as none could help,
but we were there,
if only to just be.
It was our hands that held him,
stroking that broad and humble head
while his grief was returned
and echoed within us all.
II.
the trailer came
to take him away.
my throat was punched—
it was the only time in eleven years
i’d seen our leader cry.
Not a failure in heart, but a failed heart nonetheless.
The moment clung to us like a stain
never to be washed away,
only dulled, it remained.
Claire Ervin
4/26/22
Claire Ervin is an English major studying at UC Davis. She spends most of her time sleeping and procrastinating, often at the same time. She is sustained by her best friend, who reads nearly everything she writes, and her pets, all of whose names start with the letter “B.” Her writing is always dedicated to her parents and all of her teachers who have been endlessly encouraging.
