When I first saw this kitchen, so far from my
New York walk-up, I could picture Mavis, Daniel’s Ma,
clear as day—her attempts at domesticity—
the red-checkered curtains, Brillo-polished
cast-iron stove, whitewashed walls.
Here’s a tomato spattered index card.
It looks like chile was one of her favorites.
I soak beans, black, kidney and pinto, fire-roast
peppers, wash off the black skin, add plenty
of garlic, onions, tomatoes, and cayenne.
The first taste burns my tongue.
From the kitchen window, I fixate
on the chicken run, the strut and squabble
almost human. They tussle quarrelsome
and miserly over a prized grasshopper
or blade of spring grass.
Looking out over the pasture,
how still I become. In middle-distance
a mirage rises—a pool of mercury shimmer,
cloud shadows lace the cropped foothills.
Eagles soaring on updrafts, high
as non-existent cloud cover, survey me
through the window. Their all-seeing eyes
make me out plain as anything.
Mesmerized by Daniel’s tumbler glittering
in the dish rack, I shuffle and glide
through morning, light-stepping to Phillip Glass
on the classical station, the repetition echoed
by mourning doves in the scrub oaks.
I can almost disregard the revolver
on the countertop, the coils of bailing and barbed
wire, oil-soaked shotgun cleaning rags,
rat droppings in the corners, the crackle of black widow cobwebs.
Ever since Dale Champlin’s daughter married a bull rider she’s been writing cowboy poems. From her early days hiking in the Black Hills of South Dakota to the bleachers at Pendleton Roundup, summers camping at Lake Billie Chinook, Dale’s poetry has been imbued with the smell of juniper and sage.