Remaking cowboys

Silver shiny metal

in black leather holsters

and thin strips of dotted paper

we called caps that promised

to explode if hit precisely right

We were the wild west

in fenced suburban yards

where it was safe

to be the wild west

Swing sets were our forts

or encircled wagon trains;

we practiced being shot

and falling over safely dead

until the family dog sniffed

our ears and moms called

dinnertime and served up the grub

We were Roy Rogers and Gene Autrey

and Ben Cartwright and the Rifleman

and Matt Dillon and Rawhide

and the masked man known only

as Kemosabe and the masked man

from Mexico dressed in black

and carving Z everywhere

We remade the small screen

remade the large screen

remade the Caitlins and the Bodmers

and the Remingtons and grainy photographs

and kept the myth alive, the dream alive,

until we matured and became

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

until we matured more and used

light sabers and had sidekicks

named Chewbacca

Over at dVerse Poets today, the poetry prompt is cowboy poetry, which the above poem isn’t, exactly. But the spirit of it is close enough. To see other poems written from the prompt, please visit dVerse Poets.

Painting: A Dash for the Timber (1889) by Frederic Remington.