Bonnie Nadzam

Will you be on the old horse?”

“Oh, you sweet girl. I’ll be that horse. Look at me. I am that sad old horse. I’ll come stumbling up the edge of the road. So tired. But if you put your face very close, here, to my breath—here, closer, like that—and if you listen carefully, you’ll hear me whisper. Come up. Let’s go get the world while there’s still some of it worth getting.”

What a man she rendered him, simply by being a girl who could be picked up and moved:

Was it a pretty night out there?”

“I was too sad.”

“Was it even more sad because the night was pretty?”

“Yes.”