Slowly
Gently
Pulling the trigger
Back
Relishing the tension
Of an Achilles tendon
Beneath my finger
The weight of the gun in my hand
Recoiling
Kicking
My arm up
Harder than I anticipated
My heart stops
My knees melt
Because I’ve shot cans and posts and sticks and spoons
But never the life out of something
Until now
When that strutting turkey is flat on his side
With blood
Running from where his head used to be
Turning the dirt black
Micah and Cody crow like they shot it dead themselves
Scooping it up
From the pile of feathers
That exploded around it
Because they can’t hardly believe
That I blew its head clean off
Micah pulls his butterfly knife out of the pocket of his coveralls
Ready to gut it
Asia says we should have us a bonfire
Break out the Wild Turkey to go with the real one
Cody can call back to the house on his cell phone
Tell them we’re not getting back till dark
But then he’d have to say the part about the windmill still not pumping
And the stock tank still being dry
So the turkey goes in the bed of the truck
And me and Asia onto the tailgate
Leaving Cody and Micah to argue with the windmill
Sitting there looking at the turkey
Lank in the bed of the truck
I think about that rattlesnake Dad killed
Back when I was little and he and I were out fixing fence
Cut its head off and buried it
Before he threw the body into the bed of the truck
For a snakeskin hatband
But that snake wouldn’t die
Thrashing around
A writhing strand of Medusa’s hair
Ramming its bloody stump
Against the tailgate
Angry
Fighting
To hold on
To the life
It wasn’t ready
To leave
Dry
Cody stares at the windmill
A metal flower against the sky
The clouds exhale
Silver petals shiver
Cody keeps staring
“Come on,” he says quietly.
Asia’s off the tailgate
Feet on the ground
Next to me
She glances at her watch. “Are you getting hungry?”
What?
If she’s joking she should be smiling, but she isn’t
“It’s almost dinner you know, that thing people eat around now…”
The water glunks out of the pipe in fat spurts
Splashing into the stock tank
“Yes!” Cody shouts. He sprints over and catches my elbow in a square-dance turn
Cody’s feet stop dancing. “You coming over for dinner?”
Sorry, I can’t.
I duck around Asia’s “whatever” look
Because what does she know?
My Dad’s making dinner tonight. I said I’d be home.
I can’t remember if he said he was or not, but it doesn’t matter
“Your loss. My mom’s making shepherd’s pie. I’m so glad we got that windmill working.” Cody says as he and Micah start throwing the tools in the bed of the truck
“We were so productive today, I can hardly handle it.”
It was a productive day
A fine day
I walk around to the cab
Dad will be home for dinner, and it will be good
Perfect actually
I’ll make sure it is
Dinner for Two
Dad actually is home
Really is cooking dinner
Even picked up flowers at the store on his way home
Pink carnations wrapped up in baby’s breath and tissue paper
Because it’s his turn to treat me
After missing so many daughter-dad nights
He’s had to work
Which has actually been fine
Because it’s not like I’m a little kid anymore
I understand him
Being gone
Dad passes the food to me before he takes any himself
French-cut green beans
Salad to go with the steak
“So are you and Fancy ready for next week? First rodeo of the year.”
I pass him the beans
Drop a few to Blue
Who snuck in from the porch to lie under the table
Blue alligator-snaps them up before they even hit the ground
My dog
The vegetarian
I think so.
I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself if I tell him how ready Fancy and I are
How our runs have been setting the pace at practices and haven’t been beaten
“Blue and I’ll be there. We’ll even get Uncle Tyler out of bed, won’t we?”
Dad leans down
Ruffles Blue’s ears.
Maybe it’s the image of them sitting up in the stands next week
Dad’s brother, Uncle Tyler, my aunt, and cousins
Waiting for me to ride
That gets me going
I talk about school and Cody and Asia
I even tell him about Lacey
Dad smiles around the vase of flowers in the middle of the table as he listens to it all
Blue stands up under the table
Walks over to the door
Asking to be let out into the evening that’s fading into purple
That’s how fast all this time with me and Dad has gone
Dad lets Blue out and steps
Into the kitchen for a cup of after-dinner coffee
I’d be having one too
If I were done
Eating
Which I’m not
Truly
The knife is heavy in my hand
Pressing into my steak
Slicing off pieces I can’t swallow
Could swallow
If I’d stop thinking
About the bone
That the muscle
That’s now my steak
Once clung to
I just keep cutting
Cutting it into bites
Smaller
Smaller
Small enough to swallow
I was so busy with the weight of the knife that I didn’t notice
How the space grew too large for Dad’s words to fill
Leaving him to stare at his plate
At the clock
Anywhere but at me
Cutting
The pieces of my steak still smaller
Dad sets down his coffee cup
Moves it a few inches to the left and then back to the right
“It’s okay. You don’t have to eat every single bite.”
He won’t look at me
It makes me want to cry
So I smile
Guess this means I’ll have leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
Blue scratches and Dad pushes away from the table. He opens the door for Blue and begins to gather up the dishes. He’s breaking the rules, because if he was the one who cooked, I’m supposed to be t
he one who cleans.
I stand
Pick up my plate and silverware
Follow Dad into the kitchen
The teeny sliced meat goes into a Ziploc bag
And Dad starts putting the leftover food into plastic-lid containers
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around too much lately, Rae.”
It’s okay.
“No. It’s not. I’ve missed you.”
He folds me into a hug that makes it okay
Truly
Okay that he was gone
Now that he’s here
Photographic Memory
Erase ya’ Raesha
Or
Race ya’ Raesha
He’d always say
That freckle-faced kid Danny
With his shirt that was never clean
Clutching that same brown lunch bag to his skinny chest
Never once switching out for a new bag
With clean creases and smooth sides
Just kept using that same brown paper bag
With its peanut butter stains on the bottom
And its sides worn fuzzy thin
He’d thunk me on the back with his same lunch sack every single day
As he walked past me and Asia to his table in the cafeteria
Which wasn’t far enough away
After lunch—at recess, “I’ll race ya’ Raesha.”
Get it
Race ya’ Raesha
Or he’d sit on the other side of the classroom
Holding up his pencil
Pointing its eraser at me
Waggling it back and forth
“Too bad I gotta’ erase ya’ Raesha,”
He’d say
There he was
That freckle-faced kid Danny
Staring back at me from a second-grade class picture
I’d forgotten how he didn’t have any front teeth that year
Nine gone at once
Right after the dad nobody in town even knew existed
Moved into his mom’s house with the paint peeling away from the windows
Then they were gone
First his teeth
Then Danny
His mom too
All in the same week
Leaving his just-come-into-town-dad
Staring out the screen door
At the sky and dust
Which was all they left behind
But a picture of Danny
A kid from a memory half-forgotten
Wasn’t what I was looking for
In the shoe box
With the photographs spilling out the top
What I wanted
Needed
Was a picture of my mom
One where I could see the color of her eyes
Because after hearing for forever that my eyes are the same color as hers
I woke up tonight on the couch
After my TV show had melted into snow
And the white noise filling the living room made it hard to breathe
I jerked awake
Scared
Angry
That the edges of my memories
Of my mom are withering gray
And maybe my eyes aren’t hers at all
So now
With the glossy photos spread all around me on my quilt
Falling off my bed onto the floor
I’ve got to see-remember-know
For certain
But I can’t find one
A picture of my mom and her eyes
And all the pictures of me and Dad
Asia and my cousins
my aunts and my uncles
Are making me cry harder
I don’t even know when I started crying and my hands started shaking
But they are
The pictures and the tears sliding together
Until I find it
The one of me and my mom
Both in bare feet and shorts on her horse in front of the barn
Not caring that Rocky didn’t have on a saddle
Or that our summer tan legs were sweating on his sides
Just sitting there smiling out at the camera
With our eyes
Just the same
Alarm Clock
“I tried to call to let you know, but you weren’t home,”
Cody says as he walks around the horse trailer to meet me.
I was there
I was just taking a nap
Making up for the hours I missed last night
When I was busy sorting through pictures and dreams
For some reason, falling asleep is a lot easier
After the rest of the world has been jerked awake by their alarms
That’s when I can sleep
Did sleep
In the middle of the afternoon while I was waiting
For Cody to pick up Fancy and me for rodeo practice
It doesn’t matter if I was there or not though
Because I didn’t know Kierra was riding with us
Until he pulled up to my house in his truck
With her in the front seat
Oh.
It’s stupid, but that’s all I say
Oh.
“She’s getting a ride home with her cousins.” Cody lays a whisper-kiss apology on my cheek that smells like cinnamon gum and swings the door to the horse trailer open.
I try to hold on to that cinnamon-gum kiss
Because even in the afternoon half light in the trailer
I can see how thick the yellow-gold chest is
How well muscled the hindquarters are
On this horse that’s anything but young
Anything but green
In a leather halter heavy with silver
Standing sideways and unfamiliar
Fancy steps in
Nosing and blowing at the soft-eyed buckskin
Standing where she normally does
Alongside Cody’s bay gelding
I loop Fancy’s cotton lead through the metal slat horse window
Step out of the trailer
Fancy looks so small
Breyer horse tiny
In her purple rope halter next to the buckskin
“You’re okay with this? Giving Kierra a ride? I mean, she has to get to practice. Otherwise how are we going to get some timed runs in, right?”
A gust of wind catches the trailer door as I go to close it
Turning it into a metal sail that knocks me back a step
Cody moves to help
But I lean into the throb
That will grow into a purple-black bruise on my shoulder
And shove the door closed
“That had to hurt.”
Cody pulls me into him
And we walk to the driver’s side of the truck
He opens the door
Swoops his red ball cap off his head
Bows low
Pseudodebonair
As I step past
To climb in
More Than a Chance of Rain
Staring out the windshield
I have the sensation that the truck is standing still
that it’s the fields-road-barns
sweeping past
If it weren’t for Cody’s hand on my knee
I might fly through the window
Disappear into the clouds
Pressed flat on the edge of the afternoon storm
That we may or may not see
Kierra’s gaze flits from me
To Cod
y
Out the passenger window
“Do you think it’s going to rain?”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll practice in the indoor arena if it does,” Cody answers.
And he’s off
Talking about the precipitation that didn’t come last year
Or even the year before
Cody loves weather
He always has
He built a rain gauge out of a glass soda bottle and a cork
It makes me feel better
Remembering how Cody let me try out his rain gauge
When we were in the third grade
Before the rest of our class saw it
The rain gauge
Kierra doesn’t even know existed
“Technically, this area has been in drought conditions for the last three years,” Cody’s explaining.
Usually I’d be interested
Or at least pretend to be
But today I don’t care
I just stare at Cody’s work gloves
Grease-stained
Muddied stiff
Lying on the dash
My body drifts
I lean against Cody
If she weren’t here I’d relax into the postnap lethargy
That I can’t seem to shake
And lay my head in the triangle dip beneath his collarbone
Where his chest slides into his shoulder
It would be easier to count the miles
Between the stick-figure minutes
On the dash
If I could just rest my head
Lines Shall Be Drawn
Cody looks down at his watch
He hates to be late
Not that we are
We just arrived with everyone
Instead of before
“Thank you for the ride, Cody.”
Kierra talks right through me
Cody tosses a response over my head. “No problem.”
“I’ll have my trailer by next week,” she says.
“Any time. Really it makes more sense for you to trailer in with us anyway since we’re roping together. We should keep doing this.”
Leaving me to wonder when Cody’s apology to me
Turned into this
Any time offer
To her
That’s what I’m thinking about
While they get out to unload the horses
Leaving me in the middle of the bench seat
Wondering how thick the line
Between
Any and every is
How I can make it wider
The driver side door swings open and Cody pokes his head in.
“Coming?”
The Sky Between You and Me Page 14
