☀ Today's Poem: "Rodeo Night" Tennison S. Black

When I am at rodeo I find it difficult not to root for
the animals.
— Demetri Martin

In Yuma, it's rodeo night. And dinner comes late on rodeo
night. Cows ain't pets, girl. The hands chase me out of the
pens. Get lost. Unless ya wanna—tonguetonguetonguetongue
they waggle at me. Eyebrows, among other things.

It's two o'clock, and it smells like Coors in red cups,
summer sausage breath, and the reek of ranch hands
turned out to prowl for a night getting too close.
You wanna play a game? They demand kisses

for luck. Take them if I don't acquiesce. Sudden tongue in
my mouth. Whoops, they laugh. The four o'clock breeze hits
briefly, carrying the waft of hotdogs, warm ketchup, dip spit
on leather, saddle soap. By eight the air coming in

from the desert tastes of alfalfa wet with evening
irrigation from algae-slick ditches, manure, and sweat
on salt-chapped lips. Girls don't always scream.
Here comes the night. Rodeo night tastes like cussing,

shit, for the first time when you can't be heard, like the way
salt makes watermelon sweeter. I want to wrap my tender
feet in steel-toed boots. I want to feel safe. But I wear Thrifty
Drug flip-flops with holes in the soles. Under the stands

at the rodeo, under the people, I've walked away from
mewling calves caught by ropes—can't stand their
cries. Or the cows bleating for their babies, teats overfull.
There I'm hidden from hoots and catcalls, the thrown rocks

of the boys. I climb under, then peer
out through the gaps of the bleacher pipes at the daggered eyes
of a steer. It glowers through the cracks in a culture that two
species make when they gaze into each other

from the edges. We stare. A kestrel cries
overhead. I lick my fingers, then the trail of watermelon juice
from near my elbow to my wrist. The steer huffs, paws the
crusty dirt in his pen. I ain't afraid of you. Where's your

mother? He wants to feel safe. The crackle of the prod makes
him look away, swish his tail, turn toward the sound. As the
current connects with his anus, he bolts toward the gate. Drafted.
He's six hundred pounds of muscle and horns in a game made

by men who wear belts made of the slaughter and wrangle.
Buckles of silver pride. A kestrel's striped feather lays on
the ground in the fluff of bleacher dust. I stick the feather in
my hair. The plume juts out awkwardly from the Leia buns

I made of the braids I was given. I chase stray cats from
lickable candy wrappers, suck melted chocolate from
remainders, chew sandy popcorn, hunt for Red Vine dropsies and
pocket treasures, ground scores of old lighters, coins, and lonely

earrings. All of these land in the Holly Hobbie pockets
of my pillowcase dress with rickrack edging and fuzzy red
yarn straps beside stones I've sucked until they are wet and
colorful. Through the gaps in the lowest bleacher treads, I can

see the rodeo ring. The cowboy chases the steer
from his saddle, pulls the horse this way and that, leans out
with a hand on the saddle horn. He's far from center, but
the horse bears his weight, pounds the face of the sand,

throwing stress. The steer veers, thundering toward the edges
of the ring; foam lathers his lips. They all—the horse, the cowboy,
and the steer—reek of fear. The cowboy, bulldogger, is 6'4" tall and
240 pounds. He looks sharp. A rancher should on rodeo night,

hanging as he does in the breadth
of air when he has thrown himself from the running horse
and toward the fleeing steer. Caught in photographs forever
in midair, legs one way and arms the other. American cowboy,

leaping, suspended, defiant. The bull, the horse, gravity—
everything belongs to him. The hat is either on, the model
of cowboy willpower, or a flying blur, an examination
of the way that even cowboys are subject to the forces

of nature. Viewers will admire his humanity in this moment.
But the cowboy's head without his hat is a lie.
The steer, wrenched by his horn, with one angling toward
the dirt and the bulk of him forcibly twisted toward the fall,

howls. Above his dress-Wranglers, which are held on by his
best tooled belt, with his name on the back and his brass and
silver buckle from his last win, the cowboy wears his best
hat and a clean shirt with pearlized snaps, hand-set by his new

wife with a setting pin, a tiny hammer, and a steel bar. The
pockets and cuffs are edged in navy blue piping and, in the
seam, three drops of her blood to keep him safe. This
is a thing my mama never did for him. She was

a woman who didn't use her magic on men. The shirt wasn't
among the fanciest there that night, but it was clean and
pressed, starched. The plaid of it marked this cowboy as
a little bit old-timey. The kind of man who admires John

Wayne over Clint Eastwood and eventually Clint Eastwood
over Bruce Willis. The kind of man who
insists that it's just a joke, while telling you in the next breath
how many Black people work for him or are his friends.

The steer bellows, squalls No. No, in vibrato, he's a tenor; he
yowls hell into the hum of the stands, addresses his horn to the
cowboy. No, you there. Maybe hopes for spatchcock when
the hip of the bulldogger comes down on his side,

misses the horn, hip to neck, and ranch-made hands
grab his horns, wrench his head to the side. The horse
has gone on to wait by the gate. A witness. There are a thousand
popping flashbulbs as the flail of dirt clears. The cowboy walks

toward the horse. I see myself
in the bull, the horse, not the cowboy—who's proven something,
he thinks. The fans all think about his prowess. People yell, cheer,
hooray the cowboy. Beer splashes down from above,

into my hair. The sign flashes his time. He doesn't look.
Cowboy confidence is his primary objective. Instead, he
winks at his wife and a few others. She's watching the
clock so he doesn't have to. The scent of Irish Spring and Old

Spice are gone. He's all beer and steer foam over horse lather
in the truck on the way home down two-lane roads
driving where he sees fit, right down the middle. A new
belt buckle rests in a box on the seat. He beat his best time.

He's grinning at me bouncing along on the madras seat cover
in the middle of the bench seat, but I won't look at him
and instead watch the window, tracing the ditches with
my eyes, imagining dolphins, moths, mercy. I'm dusted

such that my eyelashes are gray. Streaks of skin peek
through dirt in sweat trails that hide my freckles. The
driveway cuts around the field and scatters into the yard before
the barn. Sheep and grapefruit trees make specters

in the twilight. Rabbit, my favorite rabbit, hangs
by one foot in the tree, draining out, ready for stew. I start to cry
but he taps his belt and looks at me.
Dinner comes late on rodeo night.