The last of the high plains drifters
canters his palomino through the Montana grain fields,
shockwave ripples undulating in his trampled wake.
The sun burns like magnesium;
the moon like a knot of pitch.
Every movement in the motion he makes
hurts his fractured cheekbone
and the broken hand he holds against his chest.
Pistol-whipped and stomped by the
psycho Sheriff of Cheyenne
and his Deputies of Derangement,
the drifter, in a thoughtful mood, drifts west-northwest,
where he loosely reckons Missoula is,
thinking it may be time to settle down and marry,
maybe have some kids.
But for now he’s simply glad
he made it out of Wyoming alive,
and that his destination is stationary.