Which really isn’t an answer
Not that Cody seems to care
“Really? That’s great! I mean, your grandma’s place is right down from my family’s.”
Sweet and polite, let’s make it right time is over
Two steps left and I’m standing
Next to Cody
Mr. Welcome-to-the-Neighborhood
That’s not even his real smile
This goofy grin he’s giving her
What’s wrong with him?
I wish I didn’t know
Almost
Cody’s turning me into one of
Those girls
Who pout
Every time their boyfriend
Talks
To another girl
This isn’t who I want to be
But I am
At least right now
Hey.
“Hey, what?”
His eyes wander out the door
After her
“I was just being nice. She’s new.”
Whatever.
“Are you jealous? You know I love you.”
Cody closes his eyes
Smooches his lips
A cartoon-style lip-smack kiss
My throat’s getting tighter and tighter
Like it does before I cry
Not that I
Do that often
I hate
To cry
Blue lies down
Across my feet
Starts to chew on his bone
My dog
With the stitches and staples
Holding together the hurt
That could have been a gone
A forever gone
Like they always are
My voice is quiet
Tight
She practically killed my dog.
Cody’s eyes go wide
“I was just messing around. You know I wouldn’t ever—”
Leave you.
Is how the sentence would end
If I let it
But I don’t
I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t.
He smiles
The real kind
And hugs me tight
I press my face into his shoulder
Pull away
As Blue stands
Gives me
The look
And relocates to his bed
Next to the couch
To chew on his bone
In peace
We follow him over
Curl into each other
On the couch
Cody fishes the remote from between the cushions
Turns on the television
Looks for a movie
That will make us
Laugh
Cody doesn’t even know that he almost lied to me
He did, though
Everyone leaves
So he shouldn’t say he won’t
Tipping Point
It’s hard to say
Why
I do it now
Why
I pull the scale
From under the trash can
Beside the toilet
Maybe
Because I haven’t been hungry
Lately
Maybe if I was one of those girls
Who obsessed over magazines with more pictures than words
With shiny images of models
In white feather wings
Maybe if I was one of those girls
The number on the scale
Would matter
If I was one of those girls
I’d care
But I’m not
So I don’t
Since it doesn’t matter
really it doesn’t
I pull it from beneath the trash can
And step
Off a cliff
On to the scale
The Morning After
It’s usually cereal
Never toast
But sometimes an egg
First thing in the morning
I’ve never been one
To skip
Breakfast
But the thing is
I’m just not
Hungry
Truly
It has nothing to do
With that number
On the scale
Because really
It wasn’t (was) that bad
It would just be better
If it were less
Trample and Sample
It’s my job
To regulate the heat
Blowing through the vents
As Asia pulls down our drive
Onto the road
On our way to school
I grab the bandanna
Lying in the middle of the seat
To wipe the condensation
That fogs the middle of the windshield
The one place the defroster can’t seem to reach
That’s when I see them
Standing off to the side of the road
The part of their herd
That leaned the fence down
Wandered out of the pasture
Round behind Asia’s house
Standing with their tails to the wind
Their mouths to the ground
Eating the garden bare
“We are going to be so late,” Asia says.
As she pulls off the road
Again
Only this time
Headed down their drive
Asia’s mom comes flying out the back door
In her mud boots and coveralls
Just as we pull in
“Hurry up, girls!”
Our hoods go back on
We’re out in the rain
Chasing around in the mud
“Hey! Hey!”
Our voices mix together
As we slip slide through the tangle
Of cows
Munching on the winter vegetables coming up in rows
“Where’s Cow?” Asia calls.
“I don’t know. I let him out this morning and he isn’t back yet,” her mom says.
Asia’s hanging back now
Letting her mom and I get in with the herd
Oh, how I hate to deprive her of this fine opportunity
I slap at the one of the cows’ hindquarters
Dodging its tail
Which flicks rain and mud at me
Asia’s mom starts slapping too
But they don’t even raise their heads
My hood falls off
As I run to an old red cow
Fan my hands in front of her eyes
Her head comes up fast
A clod of dirt flies through the air
From Asia’s direction
Sticks to the cow’s back
“Asia! That is not helping! Stop throwing and get in here!” her mom yells.
Another clod of dirt flies through the air
Misses the cow
Thunks
Between my shoulder blades
I spin around
More than halfway to mad
Asia squeals
Laughs
Knows what’s coming her way
As I lean down and scoop up a ball of sod
She takes off
Turns to run
Not thinking about the way the mud will skid
Beneath her hee
ls
She goes down hard
Right on her butt
I shouldn’t
Let the ball of sod fly
But I do
I miss
What with laughing so hard
“Girls!” Asia’s mom shouts.
Because really we aren’t helping
That much
Anymore
Laughing and throwing and slipping around in this mud
Then Cow
Comes out of nowhere
Like cattle dogs do
Barking and nipping at the herd’s heels
Asia’s mom starts working him with whistles
“You girls better get going. You’re going to be late.”
My hair is so wet that I don’t even bother to pull my hood up
Asia and I jog back to the truck
“Truce?” Asia slows alongside me.
Truce, I agree.
Faux serious
Offering my hand
She goes to duck
Too slow
My muddy fingers smear streaks across her cheek
Starting all over again
This laughing and throwing and slipping around in the mud
Warning Bell
Kierra was the first person I saw this morning
When I got to school
Stepping into the middle of the year
Easy as if she’s gone to school here forever
Which she hasn’t
Until today
Leaning against her locker
Looking like 4th-of-July Barbie
In her freshly creased jeans
And a red button-down shirt
Laughing at Cody standing with his weight shifted to one leg
The other at a jaunty angle
Flying in through the front doors
Late after the clothes change that came after penning the cows
That had trampled and sampled Asia’s mom’s garden flat
Before spilling into the road
Maybe if I hadn’t been so late
Running in with my blood already thumping in my chest
I wouldn’t have cared
About them
Laughing
Over the joke I didn’t hear
Maybe if I hadn’t been so late
I wouldn’t have thrown my backpack into my locker
The books raining down from the top shelf
Sending papers fluttering across the hall where they were ripped and muddied
Because no one bothered to look down
To see what their heels were grinding
Maybe if I hadn’t pulled away from Cody
When he leaned down to help
Ducked in for a kiss
That ended up as a mouth full of hair
When I spun away
Maybe if I hadn’t slammed my locker door shut
Let Asia grab my elbow
Pull me down the hall
I would have heard what he said
Before the warning bell drowned his voice
But I don’t care
I said it out loud, so Asia could hear it too
I don’t care.
“What do you mean you don’t care? He should have been standing at your locker waiting for you, not talking to her,” Asia says. “And since when does she go here anyway?”
I look back
Only this time Cody’s gone
We’d been standing right across from his first period class
I’ll see him second block
But still
It would have been nice if he’d waited
Just for a minute
Second Block
Is too early for precalculus
Too soon for me to have to confront Cody
The tardy bell bleats as I step into the classroom
This room smells stagnant
Like a fish tank
Which is odd
Because Mr. Kraftner has never had one in here
Cody smiles across the room at me
Like nothing happened this morning
Him sitting there
Legs stretched out into the aisle
I wonder if it did
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I slide into the desk next to his
Sure. Why?
My books and binder come out of my bag and onto my desk
“Because you looked like you were mad this morning. I was going to go after you to see, but I didn’t want to be late. One more tardy and I’ll have detention.”
Right.
My throat tightens around the word
“See, you are mad. I can tell from your voice.”
No I’m not.
Mr. Kraftner springs from behind his luxury-liner, teacher-sized desk
Overflowing with coffee cups and books
He reminds me of that guy on the popcorn commercials
The one who wears a bow tie
And little Grandpa glasses
So hap-hap-happy!
Mr. Kraftner paces in front of the classroom
Thumbing through his copy of our precalculus textbook
“Pair up and let’s do this! Section four, unit two. The more you get done in class, the less homework you have.”
Cody slides his desk into place so it’s facing mine
“It’s because I was talking to Kierra, isn’t it?”
No.
But that taste of bile in the back of my throat won’t let me deny it
Even to myself
“Because if you are, you shouldn’t be,” Cody continues. “Kierra’s the one who came up to me.”
Which doesn’t make it better
The fact that she
Came up to him
“She didn’t know where her first block was.”
Cody opens his textbook
Flips through the pages
Until he finds it
Section four, unit two
“I would hate starting at a new school in the middle of the year.”
My heart flinches
Here I am
I’m doing it again
Turning into that girl
The kind I hate
Who cries and whines
When her boyfriend talks to another
Girl
We’ve been together
A year
Known each other
Forever
And I’ve always been
Fine
Really I don’t mind
Him talking
To another
Any other
Girl
Just not her
Turn and Burn
You can tell what horses have been worked over the winter
Whose folks had indoor arenas
With metal roofs that held the snow out
But not the wind
That blew cold through the walls
Or the people like me and Asia
Who’d pretended we didn’t notice
The snow freezing to our eyelashes
Or the balls of ice packing hard in our horses’ hooves
As we loped through interminable months of gray
Counting the days until the earth
Frozen silent
Beneath a crust of ice
Was released by the warmth of spring
Signaling the start of rodeo season
Team practices
Leaving the horses that had passed the winter
Standing in pastu
res
With their eyes blinked shut to the cold and their tails to the wind
Huffing and lathered
Sitting with my left leg dangling over Fancy’s neck
Curled at the knee around the pommel
Of the saddle with the rough-out seat
Worn soft by my mom
Smooth under me
Asia and I watch
Critique
Compare
Barrel racers
Teammates
One at a time
Horses dance sideways through the gate
Into the arena
Champing at the sweet metal of their copper bits
Exploding past
Riders laid flat against their horses’ necks
Breaking the stare of the electric eye
Setting the clock in motion
As they fly around the three-leaf clover
I’m on deck
Next to go
Glancing across the arena
At the road pounded into washboards by the trucks and trailers
Bumper pulls
Goosenecks
filing into the fairgrounds—our grounds
except for that one week a year
when the Tilt-a-Whirl spins people so hard and fast
they throw their heads back
looking at the stars twirled into a kaleidoscope
making them think they could be anything
go anywhere
somewhere that wasn’t born into them
like here
Hoping to see Cody
Pulling his grandpa’s blue-and-white two-horse trailer
Just as rusted and dented as the orange truck he’ll be driving
With Micah slouched in the passenger seat
Staring into the side mirror at the trailer
Bouncing and swaying as one of the horses
Micah’s horse
The color of a chocolate bar
Thumps his hooves against the trailer floor
At the road jouncing the trailer beneath him
But I don’t
Show ’em Asia’s grinning
As I swing my legs back into my stirrups
Nudging Fancy awake with my heels
Laughing as she stretches
First one hind leg
then the other
Before walking slowly
A leisurely equine iconoclast
Into the ring
Mr. Bradford
A Mister because he’s our coach
Because even if you’re only three years out of high school
You’re a Mister in Salida Springs
Chuckling and shaking his head at Fancy standing quiet
Not feeling her muscles
Quivering
Gathering energy beneath the saddle
Like I do