In Cheyenne I Consider My Father in Surgery

Abstract

In Cheyenne I Consider My Father in Surgery Rick Campbell (bio) Wide streets, few trees. Cowboyboots in the windows. Dustin the wind smacks like gravel, wearingdown enamel and desire. Trash flieslow like scavenger birds. We park.Look for beer. I'm wonderingabout that knife in your heart, chestcracked open, spread bone to bone,like an angel spread-eagled, stakeddown, waiting its due. What do theydo with all the blood? It's been toolong. I don't care. She thinks I should.I think I should. The jukeboxdisappoints me. No Bob Wills,no Orbison or Buddy Holly. Dancefloor's a hundred feet deep and emptyas a grade school on a Saturday.Rodeo days long gone. Howcan lovers drink hereafter the stars fall down?They cut you. It's routine.You ought to be alive, but thisfar away, I don't know.The wind rocks the truckbefore we get in gear. Myknuckles white on the wheel. [End Page 168] Snow on the Front Rangewill blow hard through Laramie tonight.Some last light left here but alreadydark in Pittsburgh. I love to watchher undress. Small waist, sweetbreasts, long black hair. Wehave a bed on the floor.You don't know where I live. [End Page 169] Rick Campbell Rick Campbell is a poet and essayist living on Alligator Point, Florida. His latest collection of poems is Gunshot, Peacock, Dog (Madville). He's published five other poetry books as well as poems and essays in numerous journals including the Georgia Review, Fourth River, Kestrel, and New Madrid. He's won a Pushcart Prize and an nea Fellowship in Poetry. He teaches in the Sierra Nevada College mfa program. Copyright © 2020 University of Nebraska Press