Rodeo Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

Ride me cowboy!
You know you like the way I buck underneath you!
Forget the horse-whisperer shit!
Slap me with your lasso!
Dig your spurs into my skin!
Rein me in!

Someone has to break me.
You may as well be the one.
I hear you are pretty broken yourself.
We make a pretty pair –
You with your tattoos and me with that brand on my ass.
We have both seen better days.
I’m guessing you feel the weather in your joints,
The way I smell a storm coming.

I’m guessing you have spent one too many nights out on the range,
With just yourself to keep the wolves at bay.

I, too, am a loner.
An outcast from the herd.

Who ever heard of a mare who would lead?
Who ever heard of a Shetland pony
Who thought she could stand shoulder to shoulder
With Seabiscuit and Secretariat in the Kentucky Derby.

I, too, have had my fifteen minutes of fame.
I have carried Annie Oakley on my back.
(I threw off Buffalo Bill.)
(That got me a ticket to the glue factory.)

But someone saw I had gumption.
And somehow or other I found myself here in this corral,
Waiting for yet another fool to ease himself on top of me.
It has ended badly for each an every one of them.

But your weight feels different.
Your weight is balanced.
You seem to fit me just right.

So I have a deal to propose:

Let’s put on a good show for the crowd.
I will ease on over to the gate.
And when the crowd least expects it,
I will buck back and bring it down.
So hold on tight!

I will carry us both into the night.
And then you as far as you ask me to.

Leave me in the desert,
Or lead me to an oasis.

It is all the same to me.
Just get me out of here!
You know we both long for our own kind of freedom!
Even if it means starving under the stars.

At least with nobody between ourselves and the universe,
There is nobody to lie to, to lie for, to lie under in defeat.

Are you with me?