Cowpunk

Do you think your suffering is exceptional?

Maybe. Maybe not.

The times are strange, no doubt.

In the heat of it, what I believed

was the heat of it, I shouted like a dockworker

that I was unafraid. Come at me,

I hollered, you can only kill me

once. There is nothing left

to take. I’ve said that before. I still hear

the echo from when the flames

licked my feet,

my fearlessness a cabaret.

Of course, there is more to take.

I’m copious and so are you.

My pipe. My roses. My stubborn

mule. My burbling

brook which must be traversed

to get to the island of blue lawn chairs.

My loaded apple trees,

raspberry bushes, and prefab on a slab,

and memories of Petra, with three

teeth, who made a salsa just for me

when she saw me coming toward her

diner, Petra’s. My high school drama

teacher, Jim, his hair bronze, his pallor

ruddy, his gait exceptional. I believe

we should marry, he said to me one night,

blowing smoke rings, driving me home

from play practice. I was Mary Warren

in The Crucible. I’d just learned

to insert a tampon. There were no

boundaries then, and Jim was queer.

His real love was the boy who played

The Boy in The Fantasticks.

I could feel my blood let down

like breast milk into the fabric

of his car seat. I loved the theater.

What luxury, putting on plays

in the middle of a cornfield.

The witch I played giving me

license to go into fits

in front of the student body.

Jim was fired, and died.

Petra’s dead.

The berry bushes are a dream.

The island is a pipe dream.

The pipe is a hallucination.

Still, I’m copious, and so are you.