Cowie / you cry on a bed of empty water bottles, clutching your Dorito bag blanket.
Mommy's favorite under the skirt of the mountains, oh, Cowie / you stepchild shoved into the crotch of the highway, no wonder you litter yourself /you just wanted to be the prettiest girl at the party / who Cowie, has ripped your dress?
She with snow-lilied breasts, silver-gowned beyond the marsh / she could not protect you.
And Cowie / you still carry that fact- ory on your back.
The geese preen smoke from their feathers, glide the marsh behind a barbed wire fence. KEEP OUT – says Cowie / this is all I have.
Cowie / I only stopped here to stretch my legs.
At the pub the town drunk asks am / I American then / his blurred speech breaks over the word Iraq.
I know, Cowie / I was a fool to think I'd be seen as anything other than a walking war on woman's legs.
Yes, I understand / Cowie your country has shit on you.
We smoke cigarettes together and laugh with toothless smiles, knowing the mountains will outlive human kindness and the factory and the guns and sullied reputations and the highway and the cars and the poets and the bombs and / I sometimes hope Earth will kill us all isn't that a fucked up thing to wish for but /you / Cowie nod your head /you understand.
