My teacher told me to write about 
things I knew so I wrote about 
riding that horse through the hills 
south of Attica prison in the weeks 
after the cannisters of tear gas 
were dropped and the siege had 
ended in the deaths of thirty-eight 
inmates and their hostages, most  
killed by law enforcement but we 
didn't know that yet, it was a secret 
held just long enough for our fears  
to calcify and we all came to feel 
they all had it coming and if we felt  
otherwise we kept our heads down 
like that horse picking its way along 
a familiar path, me on its back, my 
hands on the reins, believing I was 
choosing which way we would go.