Jalisco, Mexico

Hottest part of the dry season;
only cactus and thorn trees blooming—
hiking up the back fields to find
the horses and give the old mare
an IV for rehydration—
the desert is no joke at this time
of year or any time of the year
if you’re crossing a border
what with all those ways to die
or be killed, policy over people, plus
judgements, editorials, misrepresentations—
everything I know old horses are not.
But my unknowing: everything
from horses to relationships to the economy;
career, health, and hefty injustices,
imitations and calloused possibilities;
flies, blood, dirty cotton balls, not enough hands
for all the bottles and syringe caps,
finding the vein, and hoping
for something good to come
of my half-baked ability
to diagnose and treat anything;
in field medicine we have no luxury
of hopelessness, but only
can do the small, good
things that are ours to do.
To be delighted by cactus flowers:
gold and orange and gilded with honeybees;
the insignificance, the irrelevance
of caring for a decrepit horse.
Is there anything certain
but her breath on my hand,
the way she rests her nose
into the crook of one arm
holding up the IV bottle with the other,
sweat dripping down my back.