She was brief breath: roll papers
and Prince Albert. A stampede-eyed
Annie Oakley huff of cigarillo.
Plainspoken. A trail poet with a quill
pen full of black chicory and cast iron
bacon spit; someone grandpa would've
called: "Rough Rode."

I was Marlboro filters: an urban Pushcart
cowboy on a rank mechanical bull.
Together we were tempest and swirl;
a prairie tornado on dissipating crosswinds
at a Motel 6 with extra ashtrays.

She’d had dilutions: damned e-smokes.
Said the drags were shallow, like greenhorn
sex with a self-published poet.
She’d name her own poison, and face
the noose without a blindfold.