BY HOWIE GOOD
1
The Wild West, I tell myself, never existed. Hearing that, the six Indians get up from their table and leave. The bartender, suddenly trembling, spills some as he continues to pour. I feel like I’m crossing the Sierras alone, but also upstairs riding the pretty saloon girl. She sees a glimmer of something that no one else does, the hangman placing a black sack over my head.
2
Desire kept us up all night. We heard revolvers and carbines and the dynamiting of trains. The darkness just above our heads turned starry and feverish, a birthday text message received on the wrong day.
***
Howie Good is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011).
A-Minor 