cowtown flea market and rodeo

at cowtown you can get anything
for half the price you imagined

small dull pocketknives swim in a fishbowl next to pop guns
big leather purses with slightly misshapen logos hang
in the same booth as sun-faded Pokémon cards
and everyone wants to make a deal

outside they sell fruit
fresher than any I’ve had
and when the sun goes down
the rodeo starts

peach juice still sweet on our lips,
we wear cardboard cowboy hats
and sit on metal bleachers
as kids compete with their lassos

when the cowboys come out
dressed in cow hides and denim
they wave to the crowd
before jumping on the back
of an already angry bull

i see the cowboy dig his spurs into the bulls back
before the gate even opens

but then it does

and the bull begins his desperate act
the cowboy adjusting his hat at each buck

my dad
gentle and sweet
sits there
cardboard cowboy hat in his lap
his hand pressed to his open mouth

when the bull sends the cowboy
in the air
and the cowboys body hits the ground
like a penny
spinning and flipping until falling flat

my dad stands up to cheer

Winner of the Gerald Stern poetry prize and the Joan Didion nonfiction award, Caitlin Cruser lives and writes in Western Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in New York Quarterly, Moonlighting by Lit Pub, and Blue Marble Review, among others.