cowboy coffee

over a hotcake breakfast

in some small-town diner

I think,

the west still breathes out there

but it’s suffocating

with coal black lungs

those nuclear families in boxes

under billboard ads for American spirit cigarettes

where the wild west

was tamed

then domesticated

and driven to its slaughter in 18-wheelers

that scream loud as fuck

as they climb mountain passes

in Wyoming

in Montana

in Idaho

trucks steered by cowboys that can’t lasso

or hog tie

or chew on the grinds of their sugary coffees

talking about the way things used to be

in CB radios