All my best friends are cowboys,
wander beneath the sun-torn skies, we
bandage breaking aches by moonlight, we
bellow our songs, uproarious, fire-lit, together
pretending we never heard the catch
in our throats, jagged the memories
that readied our bodies for adventure
and its myriad fine-print lonelinesses,
infinite, the night that soaks us
in royal blue and one another’s
company, and longer the stretch
of days that part us.
I ask how you’re moving along,
your eyes glimmer their knowing, I
want the story you won’t write
in the letters home, scars in
the open air, the cowboy code:
I’ll be still in your voice’s shaking,
and I’ll bare my bruises at
the campfire, too, and
you won’t hear your story whispered
on the wind, cowboy, ours
the sacred exhale.
O, rugged travelers, we,
the anchors of families, in
shootouts and standstill, circle up
and kick back, shed the itch of
wondering whether the trail was
worthwhile, why we’re so
practiced in our own damn
bandaging, by the sunrise,
we whistle, silhouette lit
across the soft-spoken legends,
guns asleep in our holsters
as we borrow the stars.
michael king 