COWBOYS NEVER DIE
a cowboy is that split second of doubt between victim
and victor, quick whipcrack out the corner of the mouth,
then dissolving into being. a good cowboy never
introduces herself, wants you to confuse her
for some other tasselled horseback hopeful
crawling through the sand, wants to draw out the thrill like a
tumbleweed from her cocked hip before she wrenches the air open
with the curl of a finger and turn of a heel.
a cowboy is like love. not good, not bad, not guaranteed
to end in a shoot-em-up but always passing through.
you get more familiar with the clothes on their
back than the lines around their eyes.
cowboys never falter because any bandit worth their holster
knows that death is as good as the next town over, half
a day’s ride away on a sturdy horse. they traipse their tradition:
arrive, abandon, all eyes on the exit signs.
cowboys never stop moving so death can’t catch them,
can’t tap them on the shoulder to bring them in with a wry
smile and a rusty handgun. instead, they might be
rearing up on horseback somewhere on the 24-carat dawn,
grins wide as a cloudless sky, ‘cause the future is a desert and
the past is a gritty wind passing over the road and a cowboy
is a promise made between the two, the barest brush of hands.
cowboys never die, they just keep galloping
into the fading light. their eyes become the glint
of stars, their outstretched arms the horizon,
their windswept smiles the crescent moon.
cowboys never die, you just blink-and-miss them,
see a shadow out of the corner of your vision,
watch it stutter into nothing, heartbeat broken
by a stray bullet.
once i knew a woman who loped through town
like a slow summer, her tongue spur-stun sharp,
eyes like pennies in empty cups. her hands
were rough and warm like sun-kissed stone,
don’t ask me how i know. some things just catch your
attention in the dimness of a dust-blush bar, the front door
swinging behind the last patron like a loose buckle.
you see, all cowboys walk that daggers’ edge between life
and sleep, boots nimble and worn down by how far
they’ve come and hanging on for how far
they’ll go.
you see, all cowboys need to keep their heads up,
keep following the dying day, their muscles like animals,
barely wrangled,
knowing it’s for the better that nothing can hold them.
one day, you’ll find a cowboy’s shadow writhing in the sand
but by then, hopefully you’ll have come to understand
that some folk live to keep the unknown fed,
so you’ll just tilt your head. tip your hat. turn your back
on that horizon
and let it pass.
Alfie Nawaid (they/he) is a queer, South-Asian poet who loves the mundane and fantastical in equal measure and uses the interplay between them to explore themes of identity and otherness. When not writing, Alfie is usually making cursed memes.