Junk Yard Morgue

T.J. Barnum

Our father came home with a starving horse
on one of the last days of summer.
It stood against the cab,
piles of junk on each side, a piece of rope
around its neck, tied to the truck rails.

He had promised my sister a horse,
and here it was, by god,
all bones and swollen joints.
She climbed on for a ride and named it something.

The animal ate yellow grass forcing its way
through engine blocks and rusted piles
of dull metal.
We begged for feed.
Our father bought a cheap straw bale.

The anemic grass lasted only a few days.
The horse grew sluggish,
and thinner.
My sister rode more slowly
and the days grew shorter.

She came in one afternoon,
head down and listless
like the animal she had loved
so quickly and carelessly.
I knew the horse was dead.

It lay with a gaping hole
where the German shepherd,
guarding the fences at night,
found a last meal.
The shepherd ran onto the road
and joined the growing number of ghosts
roaming the yard.

For days, the horse lay among
rows of salvaged cars,
it’s milky eyes staring
at leaking water tanks,
flat, tread-less tires,
old batteries.

I took to going out after dark
when the house was sleeping
and the shadows covered the back fence.
Then I would lay myself down
among all the other lifeless things.

© 2018 T.J. Barnum

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T.J. Barnum has spent a number of years writing after work hours—which generally meant after midnight—and stashing the stories in the closet. In November 2017, T.J. began the submission process. Since that time, her work has been accepted by The Moon Magazine, Better Than Starbucks, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and other literary journals. For more essays, short stories and poetry, visit tjbarnum.com.