Why I Gave My Harness Bells a Shake, and: Cricket in the House, and: Trespasses, and: Interregnum

Why I Gave My Harness Bells a Shake

My little horse must think it queer …

I knew that there was no mistake. We were alwaysstopping, and not, of course, for my convenience.Not that I mind a good canter in winter, especiallylate mornings, the sun reflecting up from a snowyroad, the feel of my hooves breaking its crust—and even better once I get moving: justhoof crunch, harness bell, wind and downy flakerushing past my ears. In those moments, youforget the driver and being driven. Forget eventhe effort of motion: you're just anothermoving thing, the wind like a water currentpushing you on. But our rides were rarely like that.

For one thing, they were freighted by promises.How his promises became my problem, I'm not sure,but, by harness and whip, they did. (He didn't oftenmention the whip.) We'd start after sunset,guaranteeing a late return, with little timeto wipe me down. I'd shiver to sleep underrough wool, watching his lantern disappearbehind a barn door. And they'd drive us farinto north country, those promises, him withparcels or packets of letters, slipping insidefor a while, only to return laughing, breath richwith coffee, sugar, usually brandy. I'd smell it when he'd come alongside, a white puffin my face as he checked the bit and pattedmy side before lifting a foot to the cart stepand heaving himself up. My point is, when hewanted to stop, we did. My concerns: a horseof a different color. There were spots beautifulto me, too. I got enough of fields filling with snow.But sometimes sunset—late August hazeturning purple over evergreens. Or a river,the cool bubbling on my hoofs, just imagining it.And orchards: October studding the groundwith windfalls, halving one with a single crunch

and feeling the drip down my chin, licking my tonguearound my sticky muzzle—that is, if I wasn'twearing a bit, and, of course, if we had stopped.Bottom line: I shook the bells because I wantedto get home. Oat bag, blanket, straw mound:eyes closing. Once, years ago, at the edgeof my pasture, I saw a man: mid-forties, careworn,lingering at the fence, and when I wandered over,he extended his arm to me, palm facing up.In it: four cubes of sugar. Like dice, like we wereabout to make a bet. I knew, I understood at onceto bite gently, with just the edge of my teeth.

My lips brushing his calloused palm, my nostrilsfilling with dark sugar and human sweat—I sometimes recall it, that singular touch, before I sleep.

Cricket in the House

Not the music. Like a bicycle bellringing faster as you pedal faster.Not the spring-set contraption of its body, which I expected to be bigas a mantis but could sit comfortablyon a nickel. No, not in the half light,how its trilling turns the roominto a field at dusk in which someone'sset a couch, a coffee table, a wingback.And not transformations generally:sound making space like the time I bustedan eardrum and brought, to the silenceof my bedroom, the shushing of a distantocean. Not like that. And nothow it got in. Or how long it would beuntil and why it would die. Just whatdo they eat and drink, anyway?                                                                      Butthe thought of music meant for othersof its kind now backed behind a couchon hardwoods, antiseptic and dry—a patina of dust, cobwebsat the legs, and cat-hair tumbleweedsas I cross the room and it falls silent,the cricket, briefly. And how it mustlong for mud and coolness, for the dewnight covers everything with, for allthe other sounds insects make thatI don't notice but that it notices, howit must register dislocation, evenisolation...