For National Poetry Writing Month #4

THE COWBOY: A TRUE STORY

The leather where he sits
creaks in time to rhythms
his mount alone has mastered.

He is no hero, no rugged mass
of chiseled steel with dimples that charm,
but young and alone, the only

age too wet behind the ears
to know better than these endless nights
riding fences. The distant streaks

of lightening promise drenched misery or death,
his lone friend a dumb beast
prone to flight and always itchy

to be fed. No mother dreams this
for her baby, but he has long since
forgotten the feel of her soft lips

against his forehead, except perhaps
in lullabies he sings nights,
his cattle bumping bodies round and dusty,

his tuneless voice the difference
between a deadly stampede or a sunrise
filled with stiff coffee and his cloudy breath.