Four beers west 
of Pocatello
cowboys leer at
too tight jeans,
that struggled going on
and yet so facilely find floor,
while all her
paper cutout
dreams stand propped
up by a bar stool,
as the evening
whispers promises
to innocence expired.
 
Bleached blond locks
belie the soul
while eyes that
cry Shoshone
glare at shadows 
of existence
through a lilac windowpane,
as she stumbles
with Prince Charming
to her thirty seventh
honeymoon,
the dome light
of a Malibu
plays North Star
to her unchaste callous heart.
 
And the morning sun won’t find her.

He left town early on,
not of his own -
arms crossed tightly 
front to back,
reciting fractured works 
of Poe and blowing kisses 
laced with Comfort
to an empty room.
As mother watched
through julep tinted eyes
and softly fanned 
her southern charmed
demeanor,
the gentlemen drew
mixing straws to see
who’d tend her garden
in the spring.
 
He settled in a tiny burg
a furlong west of sanity
where azure roses danced
alone in orthopedic 
saddle shoes,
and cats played tag
with avarice
on sun burned summits
meant to quell the callow
robin’s song.
While young men tossed
a furtive glance
on afternoons marked
strictly by prescription,
he smoked a final
cigarette, as summer
left in wisps of smoke, 
then stumbled on
a bottle cap, 
and caught the
final streetcar home.