AUTHOR'S NOTE:

One afternoon, five or six of my neighbor’s horses got free and sprinted into the street. It was a faulty gate latch, one my neighbor had welded incorrectly. He cussed himself so hard, his bald head turning deep red, flecks of spit caught in his mustache. I know him as a gentle man, so his anger shocked me. My imagination ran: What if somebody else had let out his horses? What if horse thieves took them? How would that anger be directed? (I should say that my neighbor’s a good man—he’d never enact the revenge we see in this poem.)

BIO:

Aaron Alford's essays have appeared in or are forthcoming from Bellingham Review, River Teeth, Hobart, The Los Angeles Review, Sonora Review, and elsewhere. He is currently pursuing a PhD in the creative writing program at Texas Tech University, where he serves as managing editor of Iron Horse Literary Review. Find him online at www.aaronalford.com.