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