The Meatpacker Who Used to Be a Bull Rider
gets up at dawn so he can be at the plant
before traffic hits the freeway. The stench
of blood and excrement thick on his steel-toed
work boots from yesterday. First thing
the hydraulic knocker bucks his arm—
sends a jolt to his shoulder.
Sometimes he thinks wildness was kicked
clean out of him—the last time after a fight
at Rusty Coyote Bar, a pool cue busted across
his back, one front tooth gone missing
landing on that same arm—the one torn loose
in a cut-short ride—pulled clean out of its socket
never set right.
That time, the time at the bar, he woke up
in the stall, nose pressed against porcelain
one eye mashed onto urine-soaked tile.
Took him all of five minutes to crawl up
off the floor. His head rung like a son-of-a-bitch.
What was that fight about?
Maybe one of the bar girls, Crystal, that was it,
the bartender had a shine on her. That night
he was probably too slow or stupid-drunk
to spot the signal. All he wanted was a roll
in Motel 6.
When the brain-dead cow shoots up hooked
by the hind hoofs he steps back quick
and awkward—ready for the next slaughter.
Violets
Chores done, Callie heads to the draw—
icy mountain runoff just bearable
this early in the spring. The word violet—
how close it is to violence.
What was the connection? Sagebrush violet,
yellow prairie violet, and out toward
Idaho the gorgeous Beckwith’s violet.
Callie strips and gets a toehold of water—
not too cold. A Cinnamon teal drake
startles up with a clatter of wings. Callie
plunges under, her hair streaming
behind her like the wake of an otter.
She remembers climbing her daddy’s
legs when she was little. Skin-the-cat
he called it. When her feet reached
his chest—how she sprung into the air.
Callie dries off with her work shirt
pulls on jeans and worn boots.
Scrambling up the embankment
she stops dead—eye to eye with a fat
rattler sunning itself on a ledge.
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. “Callie Comes of Age” is forthcoming from Cirque Press.