1.
Outside the tavern
a brokedown cowboy’s giving
bad life lessons
to a high school couple
sitting on the step
after finishing their restaurant shift.
His friend’s drunker than he is
and he calls Cowboy a “whiny bitch.”
He tells the kids, “Don’t listen to him.
He’s wearing a Yankees shirt
which means two things:
one, he’s retahded,
two, he’s a common slut,
three, he’s a weasel — know why
he’s a weasel? Because
he can suck the ass out of a chicken
and keep running.”
Then they go back inside
where the band’s playing
“Strange Brew.” The kids
get up laughing
and walk away hand in hand,
two hoodies heading for their car.
2.
Cowboy
does the airplane slide across the floor,
ends up standing next to a woman
in a slick gray dress who turns her back on him
to face the band, swaying to Janis Joplin.
Cowboy
throws his hands up and goes over to a pole
where he stands with
his head down as if he’d become
one of those silhouettes they use to sell
cigarettes to wannabes.
3.
Turn the radio on
in any city you can name
and it’ll pour out over you
like a big Western storm: Beatles,
Stones, Zep and the Eagles.
That humid sound,
flash flood that it was back then,
carved a channel that led
to tonight, soaking everything
in a bath that still feels
both familiar and fresh.
The whole of your life
may be circling the drain
but one twist of the dial
and you’ll find that water
has bubbled up again,
and what else is there to do
except dive in?
4.
Cowboy’s buddy
is face down on his table
when Cowboy comes alive
as the bass bubbles up
into “Brown Eyed Girl”
and he’s on again,
this time not caring about who’s
on the floor as he floats
out there alone, thrilled
that no one’s noticed his T-shirt
for an hour or so, and no one
thinks he’s anything except
a guy like them,
lost in a song
everyone’s been lost in
at least once in their lives.
Dark Matter 