it’s my right
to hang on to everything about tonight
especially that dumbass hat you wore to dinner

after steak and weightless talk
we eventually got down to
the way we ought to recall each other

i did not expect that denim
would be so easy to tear
and the way you messed around with my back

made me grin like a fat frog
in a warm swamp — all wet and
croaking with the love

only a thin skin can believe in
and if you even try to pretend i’ll be forgetting this soon
cowgirl you’ve got another

ranch to buy
another farm to subdivide
another man to spoil

i spotted a bumper sticker on the way home
that said “save a horse
ride a cowboy”

for miles and miles I didn’t see
a horse or a cowboy anywhere
until i pulled off the road

and thought about the way your hair
whipped back when you flipped your head back
off of me

and i whistled the good the bad and the ugly theme
lit a cigarette
squinted into the night wind