Western

In the Western flatlands, a man is a mountain,

a magnet for lightning and spotlight.

The camera hugs close to my head to make me

the center of the empty street awaiting my enemy,

while mustachioed barkeeps and whisky-worn grannies

slam their shutters to the coming bullet bursts.

But what if before he arrives,

the continental plates collide

to dwarf our duel with rising ridges,

to drown out our sneers and ricochets

with the roar of rock on rock?

Will the camera then abandon me,

leaving me just a man against a man

in a land of men against men

overshadowed by countless mountains,

a country so overflowing with heroes

that it bleeds, that it hemorrhages heroes

who gush from the ground

without history or family,

a succession based on oil for blood

and the laying of whores for the laying-on of hands?