Audio: Read by the author.
I do not ride as well as Dmitry. Still, I always
manage to saddle the skittish pinto.
He doesn’t know that I bribe her
with peppermints and lemon cakes.
We hunt by letting our tight pack of hounds
unravel into the grasses.
They frame the night with their howls.
I close my eyes to listen; Dmitry chews
on his prayers as he rides.
We are after nothing, really.
We’ve learned to come trundling
in our cracked-horn saddles
to be out of the range of men,
of the things men do.
Each ride is longer and longer
and we spoil in the safety of solitude.
At first, we’d lose the lead dog to the smell
of home if we rode too long.
Now he comes back.
He gets a little piece of cake, too.
