Courses
The first time I ate rhubarb Mom and I went out to the patch
beside the old hog shed to pick it, twisting and pulling it up
from the root, we sat on the stoop while she cut the stalks away
from the fronds, slicing it for pie and handing me the bowl of sugar.
She tried explaining my first period, the horses in the field
and their heads over the fence reaching for the rhubarb. She said
if they ate the greens they would die. I went out to lie with them,
grass-seed pods alight in the sun and their muzzles questioning me
with snorts, breathing in strands of my hair. The first time I saw a rabbit
up close, step-dad brought a string of them in hanging long and thin
back when Danny still lived with us. We sat quiet while step-dad
knelt over newspaper on the basement floor, laying the silvery
side of the pelt up, slippery to the cheek. He talked the skinning through,
asked if we wanted a foot for luck. In gym class, it happened again,
Coach Pam stopped volleyball to take me to her office, handed me
spare underwear. Us girls wearing baby blue onesies. I zipped out
of them in the stall while she waited with a paper sack, told me
to hand her what was dirty, passed me a box of Sani Thins.
I pulled on the white cotton underwear, covering my belly button.
They called Mom, she picked me up in our old blue truck, the column
shifter stuck in first. We drove home with backfiring
and shame, the paper bag between us. My girlfriend taught
me how to shave the first time, the day I got kissed, him suddenly behind,
moving my hair to one side. Me standing still, allowing it all,
my legs oil shiny, smelling of baby powder. The first time step-dad
rode Blitz, he bucked him off, jerked him stiff legged across
the pasture, threw him at the base of the cottonwood. The saddle
hanging upside down by the girth strap. Mom wanted Appaloosas,
liked them for their spotted rumps. I sat on the rails and watched, shocked
by the sound his body made, the outburst of air when he hit,
knew by looking, how he hitched his jeans when he got up,
to not make a sound as he walked past to get the two by four. Took
it back out to fetch the horse. It was in Mr. Thompson’s algebra class the first
time I heard from Danny. Mr. Thompson held me after class.
Danny had been to visit. Worked out equations on the chalkboard.
Left a note for me in pencil saying Hi, that he went to North High School.
Someone had dared him to hang from the trusses of the old train bridge.
He was going into the Navy. Mr. Thompson asked
if I knew who it was. Handed me his phone number.