Cumulus clouds roll across the sky
Gathering
Static electricity
Gathering
Building
Gathering
Cracking across the sky
Into the arena
Ears pinned
Digging in and around the first
second
third barrel
With the wind pulling tears from my eyes
Patting Fancy’s neck on our way out of the arena
Proud without even knowing our time because she’s run her all-out best
Same as she does every time
Even when the barrels bounce off my shin and into the dirt
Still giving me her all-out best
My Competition
I stick out my hand
Slapping Asia luck as she and Scuba prance past into the arena
Scuba’s eyes rolling wild
Flicking saliva onto his shoulders and neck
Already dark with sweat
Tossing his head
Trotting in place
A rocking horse on springs
My attention diverted
By the appearance of an orange truck
With three people
In the cab
Where two should have been
I wave as Cody steps out of the truck
Wondering if Asia
Trotting out of the arena
Saw Micah offering his hand to help Kierra out of the truck
Kierra
Not even bringing a horse of her own
Asia gestures in their direction
And I follow her over
To where they’re unloading their horses
Tacked up and ready to go
In roping saddles
With horns the size of saucers
If Asia noticed Micah helping
Kierra
She doesn’t care
Leaning off her horse and dropping into Micah’s arms
Caught like a bride being carried across the threshold
Micah spins around
Swinging Asia’s head under Scuba’s chin
Laughing as Scuba nuzzles her forehead with his Silly Putty lips
I lean off my saddle
Back curved in a question mark
To kiss Cody
Standing beside me
Running his hand up my leg
Pushing the jealousy away
As Kierra
Aware that she turned four into five
Explains
In words coming out too fast
about how her horse is lame, sore after a bad trim. But her grandma thought she should come out anyway. At least watch a practice. Maybe make some friends.
Looking at Cody I know how it happened
Kierra’s grandma calling Cody’s mom
Living just down the road and all
If you could give her a ride
It would be such
A help
Even with Cody’s hand on my leg pushing back the jealousy
I smile
When Kierra
Thanks Cody and Micah for the ride
And jogs across the parking lot to where girls she knows
Her ride home
Wave to her
Cool Down
I usually love this
The part that comes after
When it’s just Asia and me
Pulling the tack off our horses
Tied to the side of the trailer
Tossing waves over our shoulders
At our teammates
Driving slower on the way out
Than they did on the way in
Knowing that there will be chores
And homework
Waiting for them
At home
But tonight is different
Because my mind keeps sliding back
To Kierra
And what I want to ask Asia
Is this
How can you not care about
Her
Showing up
With them
Scuba’s hindquarters swing wide
As he sidesteps away from Asia’s shoulder
Into me
Stop it!
I say as I trip into Fancy
Bouncing off one horse and into another
Neither one interested enough to lift their heads
From the hay
They’re teasing from the rope feeders
Dangling from the trailer windows
“You aren’t even listening to me.”
Asia drapes her arms over Scuba’s back
Scratching his withers as she talks
Knowing she isn’t just talking about going
She’s talking about winning
Barrels and poles
Maybe goat tying
Winning All-Around
We might be juniors
But she doesn’t want
To wait
Until our senior year
To bring that saddle home
All I care about is barrels though
I want to win
That event
Not at Silver State
But at Nationals
just like my mom
I pull a hoof pick out of my back pocket
Left hand down Fancy’s leg
Her hoof in my hand
Sinking the pick into the arena dirt
Packed hard
Around her frog
Against her sole
Focusing hard
On scraping it clean
Because all it takes is a single stone
To leave a bruise
I feel like Fancy and I have plateaued. I’m not sure what to do about our time.
“Have you thought about your saddle?”
What about it?
“It looked like you were riding kind of high.”
High?
“Like maybe you need to go up a size. What is it? A fourteen-inch?”
I’m not sure. Maybe.
Definitely
Focus
Focus
Focusing on Fancy’s hoof
Because I don’t want to look at Asia
When I feel myself melting
Inside
“I mean, you’re tiny, but you should check. A bigger saddle and you’d be sitting a little deeper.”
A bigger saddle
Or a smaller me
You’re right. I probably should.
“Any little bit helps.”
Which I know
Is true
Just Think About It
“Would it be stupid if I tried out for court this year?”
Asia flicks on the headlights
Glances into the rearview mirror at the horse trailer
As the road changes from asphalt
To dirt
Alerting us that we’re halfway
Home
It would be stupid if you didn’t.
It still throws me
When Asia asks questions like this
Genuinely not seeing
That she would be the perfect
Most obvious
Choice
To represent our state
As the rodeo queen
At Nationals
“You should do it too! Try out with me!”
No way.
“Please! It would be so much fun if we did it together!”
I hate and I love this about her
The two wound tight
The fact that she thinks
I should even be a
Choice
“Think about the scholarship.”
Which would be nice
Amazing actually
“And you know you want to wear a sparkly tiara.”
Because the funny thing is
I actually used to
Asia and I had matching crowns
When we were little
Plastic tiaras with pastel stones
We’d get her dad to throw hay bales
From the loft
Down to the barn floor
Walls for our alfalfa castles
They could never find tiaras as nice as the ones we used to have.
“So true. But still, you have to try out with me.”
I’m just not—
“Rae, don’t even start. You are adorable.”
Cute as a button.
I bat my eyes and shrug my shoulders
Topping it off with a cuter than cute smile
Because the only thing more uncomfortable
Than feeling less than attractive
Is having someone tell you
You’re pretty
“Stop,” Asia laughs.
I slip my feet out of my boots
Tucking my foot under my leg
As I pull my hair back
Twirling it into
A knot
“You look like her, you know.”
We don’t do this very often
Talk about my mom
That’s what my dad says.
“Because you do.”
I wish
Knowing that there are plenty of girls who would cringe
If you told them they looked like
Their moms
But maybe that’s because they didn’t have one
As perfect
As mine
I miss her.
My right hand slides around
To my back
Tracing my vertebrae
Three
Two
One
“Me too.” Asia says
They would feel wrong
Those words
If they’d come
From anyone
But her
Because no one
Not even my Dad
Misses her
Like me
But it’s Asia
And me
So it’s all right to let them sit
Those words
Between us
For the rest of the ride
Home
Intention
A buck five
With her boots on
That’s what my dad would always say
When he was describing
My mom
Which would explain
Her saddle
The one she rode
Passed on to me
Fits Fancy so nice
Used to fit me too
And it will
Again
Once I whittle
That number
On the scale
Down
Which won’t be hard
Since I haven’t been
Hungry
Lately
It won’t be hard
Now
That I have
A goal
Smaller
Leaner
Lighter
In the saddle
It won’t be hard
Because I’m willing to do
Whatever
It takes
To win
Daddy’s Little Girl
I cook for Dad most every night
Tuesdays are special though
Daughter-dad night
Even when Mom was still alive
Before purple and black rivers of bruises
Ran up and down her arms
Where the needles
Delivering medicine more toxic than the cancer
Pricked her tissue-paper skin
Tuesday was our night to eat whatever we felt like making
Eggs on waffles drowned in maple syrup
Purple Cow milkshakes with grape juice and vanilla ice cream
Fries dunked in ranch dressing
Laughing over whatever movie I picked to watch
Now we watch those “reality” shows
Both groaning over the ridiculous characters
The nonexistent plotlines
We can’t turn them off
These Tuesday nights
When I lean up against my dad on the couch
Allowing myself to be his little girl
My Wrong to Right
Sitting with my feet propped on Blue’s back
At the kitchen table
I pore over the charts in the cookbooks
Listing calories, nutrients, fat
Because dinner tonight
The first Tuesday Dad’s been home all month
what with the cattle
and the work
It has to be
Right
I look over the cookbooks
Through the sliding glass door at Fancy
And the goats we ended up with after last week’s sale at the stockyard
Two yellow-white nanny goats with nubs for ears
Wearing green nylon collars
Frayed at the ends
One with a bell
One without
Milk goats
Left standing in a pen on top of a hay bale molded black
They’d nosed Dad’s hand through the fence while he was talking to cattle buyers
Leftovers
Too old to be sold
Can’t run broken-down nanny goats through the ring at the end of a sale
Not like butcher cows
Even with their cancer eyes and prolapsed uteruses
Their insides dangling dead and rank
Those cows are worth something
So Dad brought the goats home
Reading once that every race horse gets a goat
A buddy to keep them company in their stall
Might as well give Fancy some buddies too
Who doesn’t need a friend?
He’d reasoned
I’m jealous of the goats
Standing easy and natural in the grass
Alongside their equine companion
I hope it comes that easy to me and Dad tonight
Like it has always been
Was
Before the spaces
Holes
Started opening between us
I can’t remember when it was
That they appeared
The problem is that I can’t eat everything
Not like I used to
The smell of fat
Of grease
Stays on my fingers
Coating my stomach
Making it impossible to sleep
But I can’t think about that
Flipping through the pages of the cookbooks with the pictures of food
On white china and woven place mats
Breaking up the columns of measurements
Ingredients
Chopped pureed minced pressed kneaded
Into a succulent whole
Tonight I am going to make up for the nights when I
Forgot to
Had already
Eaten
Tonight
I won’t
Forget
Rain Check
Dad had to work
Straight through the day and into the night
Ringy cows wouldn’t load
Raced across the mesa with their heads in the air
I’d finally decided what I was going to make
Pizza
His favorite
Heavy with meat and American cheese
His side
Veggies
No cheese
On mine
But it’s okay
He didn’t make it home
I hadn’t even started cooking when he called
I’d been standing in the kitchen
Staring into the refrigerator
Ignoring the sun melting red and gold behind the barn
Listening to Blue crunching his kibbles
Tags chinging off the edge of his metal food dish
When the phone had rung
“I’m so sorry. I’ll have to take a rain check. Go ahead and eat without me,” he’d said.
I understand, Dad.
We’ll do it again.
Next week.
It’s okay
Really
It
Is
Topography
He walked through the front door
Shed his coat and boots
That filled the house with the smell of cattle
Went straight to the shower
I figured I might as well too
Only for me
A bath
A mountain range
That looks a lot like my knees
Streaming glaciers of bubble bath suds
Pops up in front of me
Blue’s legs twitch
Chasing cattle across a dreamscape
Stretched out on the duck-shaped bath mat
That reminds me of bathtub toys
And the shampoo hairdos I used to get
Back when bathing was an event
I’d sit princess proud in our claw-footed tub
Wrapped in the steamy air
That smelled like plastic strawberries,
As Mom twirled my little-kid hair into spikes and curls
This is the part I hate
The getting out part
I always do it fast
Grab a towel and wrap it around my middle
Before I even step out of the tub and over Blue
Blue stretches out of his nap
Annoyed into consciousness by my feet
Leaving watermarks
On the rubber duck rug
As I whisk the towel over my
Arms, back, legs
He lumbers out of the bathroom and into my room
Chooses a tangle of T-shirts on the floor in the corner