All This Way For The Short Ride
Paul Zarzyski
After grand entry cavalcade of flags,
Star Spangled Banner, stagecoach figure 8's
in a jangle of singletrees, after trick riders
sequined in tights, clowns in loud getups,
queens sashed pink or chartreuse
in silk -- after the fanfare --
the doomed
rodeo arena goes light-out
black;
......stark silent
prayer for a cowboy crushed by a ton
of crossbred Brahma.
What went wrong--
too much heart behind a high kick,
both horns hooking earth, the bull vaulting
a half somersault to its back
each witness recounts with the same
gruesome note:
the wife
stunned in a bleacher seat
and pregnant with their fourth.
In this dark
behind the chutes, I strain to picture,
through the melee of win with loss,
details of a classic ride -- body curled
fetal to the riggin',....knees up,
every spur stroke in perfect sync,
chin tucked snug.
In this dark,
I rub the thick neck of my bronc, his pulse
rampant in this sudden night
and lull. I know the instant
that bull's flanks tipped beyond
return, how the child inside
fought with his mother for air
and hope, his heart with hers
pumping in pandemonium --
in shock,
how she maundered in the arena
to gather her husband's bullrope and hat, bells
clanking to the murmur of crowd
and siren's mewl.
The child learned early
through pain the amnion could not protect him from,
through capillaries of the placenta,
the sheer peril of living with a passion
that shatters all at once
from infinitesimal fractures
in time. ....
It's impossible,
when dust settling to the to the backs of large animals
makes a racket you can't think in,
impossible,
to conceive that pure fear,
whether measured in degrees of cold
or heat, can both freeze
and incinerate so much
in mere seconds. When I nod
and they throw this gate open to the same
gravity, the same 8 ticks
of the clock, number 244 and I
will blow for better or worse
from this chute -- flesh and destiny up
for grabs,
a bride's bouquet
pitched blind. |
