Monday, June 1, 2009
“I’ll rake for you,” I’d said to Alice, a trainer I’d met briefly,                               
and she said “Great,” thinking I meant what I said,
which I didn’t since I’m seventy and just wanted to be on the backside
to watch, listen and maybe take photographs.
I need the ’09 badge, muted orange, with my photo on it, to get                           badge
past the guards who protect the barn area of this small, once-was-stellar-
with-the-likes-of Seabiscuit and Cigar, Thoroughbred racetrack,
just outside of Boston, that will surely go belly-up
if the legislature doesn’t vote to allow slot machines at the track
which they haven’t been willing to do for the last many years, but maybe,          slots
just maybe, they will. Soon.
                                            
Past the outside rail and guard house, across puddles,
pigeons scattering in the road between dilapidated barns, I hunt for # 9
where Alice has two horses and the first five stalls                                               Alice
on the sunny side of the shed row.                                                        
“Rake fast, pull off the hay first, it’s yesterday’s news.”                                      mucking
Instantly nests fall out onto the dirt.                                                                       the
“Watch this,” she says, flicking bedding against the wall, chaff flying                 stall
and falling, dry separating from wet,
bits of shit dropping to the rubber lining mat.
                                                                         
Assuming I’m a new groom, a gray-stubble, black guy warns, “You getta
fine if they catch you hosing down the shed row. Get a bucket
and splash water on the dirt.”
Next time he and the horse come around, I ask, “Why?
For wasting water?”
“It seeps into the — ” he stands his horse, holding the lead
for a moment or two, thinking about where it seeps.
“Now you gotta wash your horse on the stones, with buckets.
And if they catch you hosing them down, you get a fine,”
a new regulation from the E.P.A.                                                                           E.P.A.
How a couple of inches of pale pebbles laid
in newly constructed rectangular wash beds between the feed rooms
will prevent damage from chemicals seeping
into the earth is hard to imagine.
Alice says, “The hell with his fines.
Don’t listen to Harry. He knows nothing. If I want to hose a horse down,           Harry
I’ll hose it down.” She’s been picking up
scraps of feedbags blown onto the grass, carrying empty bedding bags
stuffed with garbage to the dumpster.

Tuesday, June 2th
7 am. No sound of horses exercising on the track,
a John Deere pulling the harrow moves up slowly, the driver intent,
the security guard paces and I wonder where everybody is
until I hear Clemente’s high, squeaky voice,
“Sweetie heart, horse broke ‘is leg. Putting him down now. Rider ok.”               horse
I’ve hung around this adorable, irritating sixty-year-old                                       dead
since I asked Al, a Cuban trainer, the name of the man exercising his horse,
singing, “You are my only one,”
and he said, “Clemente, known him a lotta years, thirty, forty,                             Clemente
Puerto Rican, use ta be a jockey, little monkey.
Tell ya a funny story – one day, he ride by on a white horse and calls out,
‘Look at me, a black guy on a white horse’
and I say, ‘Look jus’ like a fly in a glass a milk,’
and the owner, she’s standin’ there, fall down laughin’.”

One of Alice’s horses gets two scoops of pellets from the metal garbage can       tasks
covered by three empty feed bags, vitamin C,
supplements from a white box and a pink powder
that spreads in faint clouds and leaves a sour taste on my lips as I drop it in.
The other horse gets a scoop from two different cans
and a slug of something from a jug.
In the tack room, I stare at neatly arranged equipment, hung on nails,
and try to untie the halter knot, looping and fastening
the reins with the chin strap. How did she say to roll leg wraps so
the Velcro tabs don’t stick? Loop and hook the leather lead? Unbuckle the girth
from the saddle, hang it on a nail, rub and clean both sides with cream. 

Wednesday, June 3
As I drive Al to the kidney doctor, I ask, “What’s bedding made of?”                 Al
“Shavin’s,” his hand moves as if he’s planing a board.
“Wood. Straw’s betta. More natural.
That wood, the dust, it get up a horse face. Cause problems.
Straw ain’t used no more. Belmont rule it out. Shavin’s last longer,
not so ‘spensive. Easier ta clean.”                                                       
Al would talk to a doorknob and he talked to me,
four years ago, a stranger, a white woman, not young, not beautiful, watching
horses train on the track, every morning. I hung around
his stalls so much that now
when he’s really, really sick, he lets me drive him to the doctor’s.