The Wild Heart

When I was a child

I didn’t share the same dream

of being a cowboy

that my friends did.

Which makes it surprising that lately,

I wake up each morning

and don chaps

before coffee.

The teenage heart is a wild mustang

racing along the soft earth

pushing itself to the limit

willing to jump the canyon.

Because it can.

Last week at a grocery store

the guy giving away free wine samples

offered her one.

He shot himself in the head

when she told him her age.

When we go out together

I shoot fire from my eyes

at men who can’t help but look.

She just got her driver’s license

for fuck’s sake.

And now there’s a boy.

A year older.

“We’re just friends.” she says.

“You have to learn to trust me.”

“Oh, I do.” I say

as I bang my hat against dusty jeans

dancing slow circles around her

lasso ready to fly.

When I was a child surrounded by cowboys,

I always rooted for the Indians.

But now I’m buying a gun

She has a younger sister.

***

This is the eighth poem of my personal 30-day poetry challenge to break away from the machine to think about things that don’t matter. I have no idea what I’m doing. – Jim