by tomra vecere
I open my eyes to see the pony rocking back, turning on its haunches, and vanishing into the swirling flash of horseflesh. Moments before, the gate had slipped from my seven-year-old hand and whooshed open. The metal creak and resounding clang alerted every horse to my blunder. They lift their heads from their perpetual grazing and curve their long necks to face me in unison, eyes wide and ears forward. No one ever lets the gate swing the full ninety degrees, windshield wiper-like. The horses smell my terror and my youth, but mostly they are yearning for the possibility through that gate. I stand frozen in the opening. I hold my ground, hesitantly. I was not supposed to let this happen. I had no instructions for what to do if it did. Had I acted quickly, swung my arms wide and yelled, I could have run them to the other side of the pasture. I might have retrieved the gate and avoided what happened next: our horses, the boarder’s horses, stampeding past me, closing in on the perilous highway we lived near.
I conjure myself as a horse in their herd, running flank-to-flank to Delsea Drive. Would I steer us to the Delaware River or the Atlantic if I were leading? I wanted to hear the whisper that pricked their ears forward or back according to the source of sound or mood, to feel the involuntary quiver of skin on the withers that telepaths: Run. I coveted their secret language, desperate as I was for true communication and connection, belonging. I longed to be the confident leader they galloped blindly behind. Nothing was chasing them on that day, these animals of prey—only confinement made them run for somewhere without fences, the open plains calling. Pure instinct.
After clearing the gate, the horses do not bolt for the highway. They serpentine and circle and their pounding hooves alert my parents almost immediately. My father assesses quickly and commands: human chain! I am the smallest, weakest link in this chain, this attempt at a living, moveable corral. Decades in the future, my father will apologize—I am sorry I was weak— in a note he leaves for us to find. My fingers reach for the fingers of the person on either side—my mother, my father. We spread out at first, only to move in slowly, deliberately, closing the circle. The horses run madly in front of us, wild and licking at freedom, they can taste it if they can only get past one of us. A Palamino pony charges me, and my father manages through the Red Man chew in his mouth: “Don’t you move!” With confidence I pretend to have because I was told to, I close my eyes and wave my arms forward, synchronizing my movements while yelling the guttural cowboy “Ha!”
Tomra Michelle Vecere lives in Gloucester Massachusetts with her husband, Newfoundland Enzo, and a rotation of Guiding Eyes for the Blind pups in training. She has been published in Creative Nonfiction Tiny Truths and International Women's Writing Guild (IWWG)’s Network magazine. Twitter @VecereT, Instagram @t.michelle.v