Matthea Harvey |
The Crowds Cheered as Gloom Galloped Away
Everyone was happier. But where did the sadness go? People wanted to know. They didn’t want
it collecting in their elbows or knees then popping up later. The girl who thought of the ponies
made a lot of money. Now a month’s supply of pills came in a hard blue case with a handle. You
opened it & found the usual vial plus six tiny ponies of assorted shapes & sizes, softly breathing
in the styrofoam. Often they had to be pried out & would wobble a little when first put on the
ground. In the beginning the children tried to play with them, but the sharp hooves nicked their
fingers & the ponies refused to jump over pencil hurdles. The children stopped feeding them
sugarwater & the ponies were left to break their legs on the gardens’ gravel paths or drown in the
gutters. On the first day of the month, rats gathered on doorsteps & spat out only the bitter
manes. Many a pony’s last sight was a bounding squirrel with its tail hovering over its head like a
halo. Behind the movie theatre the hardier ponies gathered in packs amongst the cigarette butts,
getting their hooves stuck in wads of gum. They lined the hills at funerals, huddled under folding
chairs at weddings. It became a matter of pride if one of your ponies proved unusually sturdy.
People would smile & say, “this would have been an awful month for me,” pointing to the glossy
palimino trotting energetically around their ankles. Eventually, the ponies were no longer needed.
People had learned to imagine their sadness trotting away. & when they wanted something more
tangible, they could always go to the racetrack & study the larger horses’ faces. Gloom, #341,
with those big black eyes, was almost sure to win.
Matthea Harvey
The Crowds Cheered as Gloom Galloped Away is reprinted from Sad Little Breathing Machine (Graywolf, 2004).
Poem, copyright © Matthea Harvey, 2004
Appearing on the Fishouse with permission
Audio file, copyright © 2006, From the Fishouse
Posted on January 30, 2006 6:56 AM