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Vincent Rendoni

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Horse Facts

My mother couldn’t afford rent,
but she could afford horses.
We gave her a check for groceries.
It went to hay & stable.
It’s not that horses are expensive, she said.
It’s all the feeding & caring that adds up. Like kids.

Whenever we would meet for breakfast,
she would tell me all the facts:
There are no wild horses. Not really.
They were not native to the New World.
You can order them on pizza in some parts of Italy.
Though why would anyone do that.

We’re at the farm today with the other widows.
I watch as she brushes her boy clean.
Clearing the crust from his eyes.
Keeping a hand on him as she makes her way round.
A good habit.
Letting him see where she is
at all times.

My favorite horse fact:
Just because they’re prey,
she says,
                 doesn’t mean they can’t kill you.

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Fun Family Anecdote

As you know, your father & I
    were on & off for a long time—
                Well, he was off.
So, this one time,
    I was driving home
        from work in the city
             & I saw him walking down the street
                     sharing Mike and Ikes with this woman—
                                     a whore.
                  OK, not an actual whore.
                         But you know, a whore.
             Mike and Ikes were just for us.
                  I was limes & he was cherries
 & it got me thinking
        about all the other whores he was going around with
                 so I followed her home & waited until it was late.
    I admit I’d been drinking,
            but I wasn’t drunk.
                   I just get mad.
              You are who you are.
             I am who I am.
                So I took my Impala
                     right through the side of her house
                             right through that windowpane
                                         & tore up the shag carpet of the living room.
                                                 I could have killed her then.
                                                    She was so afraid. I almost felt bad.
                                                          But we don’t get mad in this family.
                                                               We get
                                                                     even.
                                                              It all evened out.
                                                            Your grandfather took care of everything.
                                                       It was when we had money.
                                                  Paid for all the damages.
                                              This, he said, this never happened.
                                                  A few months later me & your dad
                                                       were back on.
                                                     Then we had you.
                                                         Isn’t that funny.
                                                             Isn’t that funny.

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Vincent Antonio Rendoni is the author of Dead Chicano Mixtape (Red Hen Press, 2027) & A Grito Contest in the Afterlife (Catamaran, 2022), winner of the Catamaran Poetry Prize as selected by Dorianne Laux. His work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Copper Nickel, Alaska Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Ninth Letter and Pleiades. He lives in White Center, WA.

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