1.

Grandfather was the only
rider never thrown
by a boxy Umatilla Hills pinto
             called Muffled Screams.

Between rodeos
he laid metal tracks
coast to prairie—shod hooves,
shovels, picks, gandy poles.

In the generation of his birth,

railroad seamed
American land
at a rate per capita
             yet to be exceeded
                          in recorded history.

Starting to rise
back up before
his back hit dust: an artifact
             of ancestry.

2.

Before her body took a bad fall,
cousin said Indians

were natural riders.
She was a consummate
teller of thorny tales.

Later she said the cure
to her disease would turn
her hide to iron-horse dusk.

I have a hard time
recollecting the exact shade
of her eyes,
but her red curls
             stay with me.

She could stick
on any horse, but she
didn’t want to live
on those machines
             so she didn’t.

Like green-broke
horses sunfish,
butterfly, crow hop—
we wear out our backs
trying to cast
             the burden.

3.

A half-remembered
elder taught me to pull
a rope against a winch
up to five pounds’ pressure.
A good rider
             never pulls harder.

As a kid I had
a lazy habit

looping the reins
around my fingers like macramé
until a hard buck

delivered me to gravity—
leather twisted into a tourniquet
             across my palms.

Withers and saddle
horn punching twisted horizons
             of sky and arena grime.

Never learning
but the hard way, riding or
ridden I had to unknot myself.