written By
The best lie he ever told me
was about the bull on his
grandfather’s farm, an atypical
creature all the cousin-children
played with, brushing his hide,
nuzzling him between the eyes,
treating him like a beast prepared
for better pastures but still consenting
to human contact, almost like a working
animal. Of course there was no bull,
or farm belonging to his grandfather;
he hated his cousins, called them
rednecks and true believers; bulls
might remain tame for extended periods
but the lack of volatility eventually
inspires a new round of their territorial,
disruptive imperative. I should have known better
but I was a city girl, the suburbs
actually, and I was homesick
for my parents who read to me
from a children’s book about
a friendly bull and somewhere
in my memory there’s a Girl Scout
or Brownie adventure to see
a bull in our very own neighborhood,
a holdover from when the area was
fire trails and rural outposts, another
tale we told ourselves about how we
were special. I remember this bull
like the other, as black and shiny on
its flanks as sable, like a primordial
wetness at the bottom of a wormhole
or the rinse stars are birthed in, so
their stories are always ready for
that scalding realization.
