Princess Cowboy

Fish feet in floppy turquoise boots

Freckles and peach fuzz on her toes and knees

The soles of her feet 

Touching the soul of the concrete.

Pop!

Her gum snaps.

Some of the gum is stuck to her tacky, pink lips

Polished and primed with lipstick and glitter gloss

Bejeweled with the promise of a sweet, sticky kiss

That tastes like cheap wine and

Cigarettes

And regrets.

The kind of kiss you would get when

The moon was filled with poison and so high

That the wolves had forgotten howling for slumber.

Clink, clink, clink!

Turquoise and opal rings click out a beat

That is maddening with the passing minutes,

Banging against a studded, silver belt

Where wild horses roam the buckle,

Searching for bluer skies.

The bus is always late.

“She’s the one of which songs are sung, raps are spun,”

The elusive urban goddess,

Smearing on another heavy coat of lipstick,

Peering out at the world with horse-eyes,

Earrings shaped like saturn orbiting her face,

Tangled in her matted hair.

She has a far-off look in her eyes,

Cause she’s known better sights,

But is stuck like a shoe in the Delta mud.

A foreign scent to her skin,

Like she had slept every night in a desert

And now she’s a wild jackal caged in a cold, hard city

Where the streets know her name.

She lingers for a moment under the spotlight

Of flickering street lamps

Until the bus turns the corner and she ascends

And is gone.