Robin Behn
August 2006

The Yellow House Writes a Story for the Boy

            Once upon time, a horse and its rider came to a place where squares of light shone out from a room of air, out and out into the snow.  Golden paddock is what the horse was thinking. Halfway up this steep hill is plenty, thought the boy. The doorway where snow wasn’t was as wide and as tall and as still as a horse when it is sleeping in its stall, and so the horse went in and the boy on its back went in, too.

            Inside was a cube in the shape of a bale of hay, and another cube that was a little table, and upon it a curve which was a spoon for hot chocolate which was waiting for the boy, he could smell it.
           
            What? 
           
            O.K., and another hot chocolate for the horse.

            The earth turned a little and the moon rose a little until the shadow of the horse lying down, hooves tucked up under, exactly matched the shadow of the room of air. The way a valentine takes on the shape of swelling and the shape of cutting and sweet thinking. 

            The boy lay down very close to the horse. Then the letter r lay down on its side, very close to the boy. And when he awoke the boy was in a house and the horse was still huddled inside the yellow glow. And the house said, Oh, O.K., you can ride your horse inside.

First appeared in The Journal.