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Backdrop Addresses Cowboy
Margaret AtwoodStarspangled cowboy
sauntering out of the almost-
silly West, on your face
a porcelain grin,
tugging a papier-mâché cactus
on wheels behind you with a string,you are innocent as a bathtub
of bullets.Your righteous eye, your laconic
trigger-fingers
people the streets with villains:
as you move, the air in front of you
blossoms with targetsand you leave behind you an heroic
trail of desolation:
beer bottles
slaughtered by the side
of the road, bird-
skulls bleaching the sunset.I ought to be watching
from behind a cliff or a cardboard storefront
when the shooting starts, hands clasped
in admiration,
but I am elsewhere.Then what about me
what about the I
confronting you on that border
you are always trying to cross?I am the horizon
you ride towards, the thing you can never lassoI am also what surrounds you
my brain
scattered with your
tincans, bones, empty shells,
the litter of your invasions.I am the space you desecrate
as you pass through...
