Who can blame the bull?
He’s used to open range.
When he stamps his hoof, 
the weak scatter.
His bellow splits mountains.

He can’t help swinging
his head to glare at this cage.
He cannot help the sweep
of his lethal horns.
Why can’t he master 
such crimped space?

Even a twinge of fear
may surge through his body
as he spins, kicks, thrashes—
to escape? To shatter
what he cannot understand?

Who opened the door?
Everything here was fragile, precious.

Stopped once more at Security, he grins,
throws up his hands, steps through the scanner again.
Yes, he’s packing metal, but it’s in him.

He’s unarmed, now, no longer a killer.
He gave up his weapons—his M-16,
grenades, handgun, knife stashed in his boot.

He’s just trying to get from here to there,
wants to fly with a drink and a movie
playing. No watch, no shoes, but now he’ll bare

himself to his skivvies so the guy can 
search him, and hey, safety is what it’s all
about. No reason they should trust his tale

of jungle warfare, and he’s seen enough
explosions to last a lifetime, no use
coming through hell to shatter over wheat-

fields, amber waves of grain, purple mountain
majesties, etc. He’s learned, too, not 
to joke about where his blood gets its iron,

from this shrapnel rusting in him, too near
his spine to remove, ghosts on MRIs.
Sometimes piercing skin, coming up for air.
                        

Through his fingers runs the magic of numbers:
3’s mystic trinity, the infinite loop of 8,
7 the key and 5 begging on its fat haunches.

On their sleek sides horses
carry numbers, jockeys
weigh in, he says you must weigh
the odds, but she loves
gray dappled on gray
and the names:
	Iron Liege
	Native Dancer
	Maid of Flight.

When he waves his daily double
across the finish line,
she thrums to the rhythm
of forty pounding hooves.

He teaches her that numbers
after the clef of the dollar sign
turn to music, that x
is the unknown
she must solve, solve, solve.
He explains the mystery of zero,
an absence so potent
it can make, or erase, a million.

He can figure in his head
columns of numbers like dervishes
whirling, his lucky number coming up,
life adding up to something,
the combination of heaven’s gate.

She eats crab cakes in seedy restaurants
that chime with music of one-armed
bandits, and when three
	     gold eggs drop
      Lemon  Lemon  Lemon
    she savors on her tongue         
  the smooth, bright sounds of
      Lemon  Lemon  Lemon
           for it’s words
             that count.