Vaquero

Dan Jacoby | Poetry

cow hands
part of the fabric
legends that die slowly
in Cheyenne, day he died,
worked whole life
from a saddle
on rank, cold backed, big boned horses

dallying with a smooth horn
hiring on with whomever
would have him in the great basin
there in the dust and mud
heaping on the wood
into a camp house stove
worrying about one thing at a time

tattered, torn, and tattooed
from mending fence, rogue steers,

working his reata on one ironed stock

coming out of bucking chutes
looking for a personal best
made from hard red rock
backbone of the prairie
listening to a saloon music serenade
in the palomino on a Friday night

sipping grave deep whiskey
quietly, doggedly endured
having tied his last heal knot
now rests under a fire pool of stars
and rising cinders of a mesquite fire

with the chatter of coyotes
and the nickering of wild horses
for an epitaph