Desperado 1913
I woke to his footsteps
tar-colored boots inches from my face
there among the mouse droppings
and sawdust, the floorboards stinking
with manure tracked in from the street
I could barely lift my cheek.
Last thing I remembered was the moon
on the black plate of night
bit in two like a biscuit
though it crumbled as my eyes swelled shut.
I dreamed the moon grew into a kind of mother
who held my windowed black at bay.
Her soft-buttered light beaming — a faint
lullaby — was it a cowboy song?
I tried to thank her with my voice, but my lip
was split. In the dry cake of blood
and torn skin, words snagged and stung like barbs.
I must have fallen deep into blackout
and when he came back roaring above me.
The Victrola was crooning,
and my eyes wouldn’t open
but a slit. I’ll hop a train somewhere, I thought,
somewhere going out West where they sing
yip-I-adee-I-Aya,
a line going anywhere but here.
