Monument to the Last Horse

I imagine you two to be perambulating the Chinati
compound one day when you spot that nondescript,
crumbling, concrete marker and say, “What’s that?”

And then he, in the way only he could do, full of the
malevolence saved for blind institutions like religion,
graceless museums, governments and war, tells you.

“That’s Louie, last surviving horse of the U. S. Army
and a veteran of World War One. They shot him.”
“What do you mean they shot him?” you wonder.

“That’s right. Up until the Calvary was dismantled,
Louie lived here at Fort Russell. Bastards found out
he was the last one so they shot him. See, 12-14-32.”

“You can’t be serious?” you may have then replied,
shocked, repulsed an honorable warhorse could be
treated in such a callous, shameful, disloyal manner.

Well, he probably knew he had you then, Claes,
knowing your mind and your sensibilities, seeing
the defiance and the pain in those offended eyes.

“They dressed him in his colors one last time, see,
marched him around, saluted him, and then they
put a bullet in his brain. After that, Taps, baby.”

“That’s revolting. And then they just put him there?
Under that concrete slab? That’s Louie’s memorial?”
Then you found a horseshoe hiding in the Texas dirt,

and as you held it in your hands the spirit of Louie
surged through you. You stared long and hard at it.
Later, you picked up that rust-covered nail and you

jammed it through like a bent, broken hammer and
sickle and you knew then you were on to something.
This is the way I imagine it. You imagined all the rest.

Animo et Fide