Yesterday, while looking for
the owl, I met a gelding. The
horse was so still that it must
have been time. I almost
missed it because I didn’t

know I could see time. Time
is the only thing that doesn’t
move when it moves. I stood
at the fence, half hoping the
horse would come over, half

hoping I was the horse. I made
noises with my feet. The horse
turned its head to me. What are
days for for? / Days are where we
live. / … They are to be happy

in: / Where can we live but
days? wrote Larkin. My day
was this horse. This horse is all
my days, with its brusies, tears,
thin overworked body. I pay

all my debts to this horse.
This horse is also all the hours
of my life that are unlived.
It is all human suffering at
once. The horse knows this

and doesn’t move, doesn’t
come near me because
suffering cannot be touched.
At the courthouse, a woman
saw me looking up at a tree.

No owls today, she said. Two
live up there. This whole time I
had only been looking for one.
One is my life and the other is
what it could have been.

Victoria Chang, “Marfa, Texas”, in The Trees Witness Everything