Already Broken

You must write as if all along a flaw Was on the bone, one place not quite right. Begin the story as if you knew the horse As weak, delicate, ruin about to happen. Walk the road backward, Thick with trees, out through to pasture Where the bucket hangs ready to fill, The truck cold, the doctor still asleep. Your knees without mud, the handbook high Upon the shelf, the needle as it waits for the question Not yet asked. Morning untrampled As a room we'd never entered. Or entered And were not seen. Entered and then Forgiven. Entered never moved again.