Evening Stroll

By Wesley Houp

One evening you find me
lying face down in the road
behind the little cart.
You wonder how it happened.
Did the cart run him over?
That couldn’t be.
Was it foul play?
Then you notice the hitch
and single tree up front.

His horse has run off
with its harness!

The horse must’ve kicked him,
knocked him clean out of his seat
and slung him over the cart.
Such brute force!
You study the physics of such
an extraordinary chain of events.
Something terribly wrong
had to have happened
to make your theory work,

but you’re happy with it
nonetheless and

you whistle a bar of
Camptown races
as you stroll away satisfied.
He got what he deserved,
you’ll tell folks later on.
No telling how many years
he abused that poor horse!
If I weren’t dead,

I’d roll over and yell at you
that I’ve never owned
a horse or a cart.