I dreamed you a cowboy once

in a lacquered saddle. You straddled

a high horse, your face unshaven,

your hands a man’s, your hips

a hinge on haunches.

                           Four days

we waited without rain: the tracks

a baseline buried in arid earth, the train

a star soprano late to stage. We slept

on horsecloth. Cassiopeia inked

was all you thought to say.

Morning four, we boarded the beast,

bandanas bound behind our ears.

                                     Its oiled conductor

crouched in a corner,

the coal shovel cocked off his ribs like a rifle

breaking both his thumbs in the scuffle.

We fucked on bags of bank bills

to smell wealthy. You asked again

         But I didn’t know,

so I shot you twice between the eyes.