A Cowboy Once

I wore a cowboy hat once

with a string cinched tightly round my chin, Gene Autry style,

And chaps, and silver pistols in black Hopalong Cassidy holsters.

I hid behind a fence ‘til the milk truck came, driven by Black Bart,

Who wrestles the drums of milk into the truck

from the transfer stage at the edge of our farm

where dairy farmers left the day’s milk

too early even for this five-year old cowboy.

And I level the silver pistols and “bang bang!” I said (we weren’t allowed caps back then),

And quickly, well-rehearsed, Bart returns fire,

finger-barrel pointing, thumb-hammer clicking off the rounds, one by one, “bang bang!”

sending me scurrying for cover, sometimes wounded, sometimes not –

even a five year old cowboy know the rules demand you fall dead once in a while –

taking your turn as mortal cowboy,

and like Gabby Hayes, dying in Roy Roger’s arms, like this…[slump]

only to appear again firing “bang bang” the very next day.

Today’s guns fire real 9mm caliber ammo

and gun-child’s mind’s eye sees clearly the projectile

twisting down a finely rifled barrel at explosive, ballistic speeds,

but in slow motion as in a hundred Matrix-like movies, for dramatic effect,

splitting the air and tearing one jagged hole, never to be closed,

in a pulsing chest or perhaps a forehead of a young merchant –

or perhaps a father or teacher or teen-aged mother –

and brings to life the fantasy that renders death effortless,

so cool and casual,

with less feeling than a thousand TV deaths

that never show the families torn apart forever –grieving forever, sad, forever, forever betrayed.

Is rage and fantasy in both our hearts?

Are we separated only by time –Cowboy and Gun-child?