The Hoarse Racer

A woman went to go buy a racehorse.

She saw one, hair black as the night, and mane elegant.

“I’ll take it!” The woman exclaimed, enamoured.

The stable master grinned with a: “But of course.”

 

The woman brought the horse home to ride and race.

But the horse wouldn’t move.

It just stood in her stables staring ahead.

No emotion, no expression on its shadowy face.

 

“Why do you not move? I wish to see you gallop and prance.”

The horse again didn’t move, or make a sound.

The woman then thought, to maybe trick the horse out.

And though she laid trails of food, the horse stayed in a dead trance.

 

Then she thought to maybe call the horse, but first it needed a name.

“Orobas.” The woman called, and still it did not move.

“Orobas, please come and run with the other horses.”

She pleaded and begged, but the horse was still the same.

 

Then she thought to maybe move the horse, so around its neck a rope she hung.

She tugged lightly at first, petty pulls to guide the horse along.

But the horse still wouldn’t move.

Desperately then, she clung to the rope and pulled hard, until after failing, the rope she flung.

 

Now woman thought, “If it will not leave, then the stable will.”

And then she dismantled the entire stable, and all the other horses fled, never to be seen again.

But the horse didn’t move, the ground under its hooves now dead and decaying.

It’s expression unchanged, stayed calm and still.

 

At last the woman ran out and yelled at the horse till her voice grew hoarse.

“I just want to see you dance in the sun, Is it so hard to just have fun?”

“Do you simply want to see me suffer?”

Then the horse turned to her with a smile and spoke: “But of course.”