Cowboys

I sat in a ghost town saloon

with squealing doors and

cracks caked with dust on windows and mirrors.

The clouded water brown matched the filthy air

that never left me in those old days.

Then the cowboys, wild, rugged, bearded—

they pushed those swinging doors—filled

the bar, plunked piano keys, left prints.

The men came in and brought the town to life.

But they dirtied my water,

and pulled the dust from my air, and

I forgot to remember what never left,

because I didn’t feel it stifle my skin.

We were all breathing in that place

until I realized: all I needed was the air.

I sent the cowboys to their saddles,

sat alone in the saloon

to breathe with the ghost of the town.