I’m Stuck in the Old West
I brake and turn for the Shell Station on the cusp
of town so I can buy rolling papers, a Hundred Grand,
and pump some gas. The cashier smiles at me with ancient
elbows and two missing eye-teeth. The spot on her left breast
for a nametag is bare. The hill out back behind
the Grub Mart props up an ungrateful Windstar, rusting
on the too-green grass like a wounded
animal or a beached whale. A man in a hat opens
the door, the bell smacking its lips at me, and I hear
a strain of “God’s gonna cut you down” murmur
from pump three. I imagine the Windstar
crumble to a chrome, sparkling dust and sifted through
the grass and gone, obliterated by the sun until
the grass remains and waves and
flowers, stretching toward the air hard and fast like a
boy escaping the school bell.
The world begins again, hooves press the carpet
of the hill, battles cascade the slope in rifle balls and
bowie knives, husbands and wives recline with terriers
and kids. I row my boat through the years
until I boomerang back around. The clock hands
circuit enough times that the hatted man yanks
the door and Johnny Cash ushers the first clangs
of “Green River.” The heat squeezes my neck, and I
take my change, the cashier’s tongue pressed through
the holes, back, forth, tick tock.
