Pre-Raphaelite Cowboy Ballad
Jonah Winter

Like a year in reverse or
a mattress in the alley or
a rainstorm filled with names
I keep movin' on

like the teardrop in your eye
which sprouted like a flower from Hell
each time I appeared in your mirror
wearing my cat mask

and holding those two black candles, one
for the telephone call in which you said
"Would you like some coffee? I'm gonna have some"
and one for the waves

and the undertow of sadness which swallows your smile
like that waiter
at the Chinese Dragon Restaurant who,
like a snowy field,

sunk backwards in the shadows
just as your leg sunk in that
pillowy oblivion
away from my leg

while the City of Stairways echoed
with words you were saying to yourself
(quaking aspens, whispering firs, please
can you tell me where

where is the pharmacist? I am a little
cold, I am, I am dead, I am everyone
Botticelli slept with, I AM,
I SAID. YOU. MAKE. ME. SO.

VE-RY. HAP-PYYYYYYYYYY!)

© 2005 Jonah Winter

Jonah Winter is the author of two books of poems, Maine and Amnesia. His work has appeared in recent issues of Margie, The Literary Review, Octopus, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. His whereabouts are unknown.

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