Most people don’t know how to say Appalachia. It’s like Nevada—you say it differently if you live there, if you’ve ever lived there. Nevertheless, a horse lives in Appalachia, high in the Cumberland Mountains. She descends into the valleys to eat red apples off stunted green trees. Those trees, they twist, and she, the horse, rears on her hind legs to get at her favorite fall fruit.
I met her there once, in the apple orchard. Like many Scientologists, I believed the horse could be my mother reincarnated into a free, wild being. My mother always said she’d come back, so I hiked the hills around our farm until I found my mother in her new horse shape. I recognized her by her haunches—plump and bouncy. My horse mother galloped away at first, but I sang her a song about an appaloosa. She didn’t have any spots on her new coat, but the song still worked. She came closer and closer to me as I sang, nudged me on my shoulder. I pet her black mane, tapped her knobby knees. I don’t know why, but her knees, they fascinated me. They were black like her mane and tail, not brown like her body. I guess I’d call her a bay, and quite a common horse. If she hadn’t been my dead mother, I wouldn’t’ve looked twice at her, much less broke and rode her.
Court Harler is a queer writer from Northern Kentucky. Court is currently editor in chief of CRAFT and editorial director for Discover New Art. Court's multigenre work has been published around the world. Learn more at harlerliterary.llc.
This piece appeared briefly online with Writing By Writers in February 2018.
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