HORSES AND DUCKS

By Madison Garay 

I don’t have anything to say about home. I’m often unsure that I’ve had a home. If I could write a poem about Los Banos, I would. If I could kiss Fairfield, I would. But I can’t. There’s no way to aptly describe what it means to be riding your bike with your dad along the canal, with the sky all white and the air dry, and knowing Shadow is home in the yard and knowing your sister. Knowing your sister. But I’m not sure if you really know anything as a child. All I did was experience. I worry too much about knowing, about remembering. I worry too much about the A in Westphalian when I should be laughing at the hole in the fence. Which fence? 

Which fence? The hole from winds knocking the fence separating Mallard from your corner on Sprig or the hole that some kids broke. The hole separating the cows from the suburbs. When you put it like that, the hole could be Mercy Springs Road. A wind-tunnel. An intersection. Dead grass over there and all around. Those cows were set up to die. Cordelian cows are set up to live. 

Westphalian and Sprig. Sprig and Westphalian. When we moved, I once was able to see the Suisun marsh from my window. By the time I left, I only looked down the street. We called it the widow window. I liked to see and not be seen. That’s how I felt locked in the ribcage of my mother’s childhood pain. I am unlearning. I am failing. Yet, I am trying.