The Bread We Eat in Dreams

a six shooter

called Witty Rejoinder.

And I tell you what,

Me and Bob and Witty

we rode the fucking range.

This thing here is two poems and one’s about proper shit

mythic, I guess, just the way you like it and the other one

isn’t much to look at, mostly about what a horse smells like

when he’s been slurping up Jack and ice from the trough.

The first poem goes like this:

A few little-known facts about cowboys:

Most of us are girls.

Obsolescence does not trouble us.

We have a dental plan.

What I can tell you is cows smell like office work and

the moon looks like Friday night and the paycheck just cashed

rolling down to earth like all the coins

I ever earned.

Drunk Bob he used to say to me:

son, carrying you’s no hurt—

it’s your shadow weighs me down.

That, and your damned singing.

And Witty she’d chuckle

like the good old girl she was,

with a cheeky spin of her barrel

she’d whistle:

boy, just gimme a chance

I’ll knock your whole world down.

Me and Bob and Witty,

we rode town to town and sometimes we had cattle