Comstock Review Fall/Winter 2014
Goddammit, all I want is a cigarette.
Everyone else is smoking,
what a sweat lodge, all shades closed up tight.
Boil at the back of my neck’s gonna explode.
No one leaves Dallas till I say the word.
Our tents’ve been raided and our horses hobbled.
The morning team’s out of office for good,
but hell if I’m the chief in the Irish mafia’s mind.
So come on over, honey, get up from the bed,
I’m not about to stage a coup.
That’s right, all the ladies ‘round me,
Lady Bird, Judge Sarah, sweet, sweet Jackie.
My hands don’t shake, but hers do. Mercy.
They’re bare, white—still lots of blood
on her pink outfit,
but now don’t see anything
but the flashbulbs. Thank God
for the smoke, or the smell
she carries would kill us again.
So help me God!
I shout over the howling engines.
swearing on this stand-in Bible
Jackie snatched from the bedroom’s nightstand.
Hatches shut tight
the Colonel shoots us so hard
out of Love Field we’re like
a Comanche’s lance,
driving its steel point
into our surprised throat.