An American Anomaly

Cowboy guy traded his stallion
for an electric scooter.
He zips down the side of the highway
past the line of commuter traffic
defying the wind with his cowboy hat,
his red Kid Rock tee
flapping like a flag.
We laugh in the car
and I can’t help but wonder
where he’s going.
To his cowgirl girlfriend’s
horse ranch where he’ll have to park
his scooter at the gate?
To the corner store for a 24oz
can of Bud and BBQ Lays?
The local café for an organic
oat milk latte and a pistachio scone?
To catch the matinee of that Rom-Com
everyone’s talking about
while no one is looking?
To his buddies’ to watch
the WWE inaugural match
with the broligarchy high-fiving
every left-wing body slam?
Maybe he just needed to get out
of his mom’s basement
and catch some fresh air, feel
the breeze around the rim of his cowboy hat
as the spectacle of his body
bullets through this snapshot of time,
out here in the West,
free and brave.

Julie Valin has been writing poetry since Ditto jeans and bubble gum lipsmacker were a thing. Her poems have appeared in The Gasconade Review, The Black Shamrock, The Poeming Pigeon, Chiron Review, Red Fez, and more, plus several anthologies & collections, including the Punk Rock Chapbook Series by Epic Rites Press. Her books of poetry are The Distance Between (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2011) and Songs For Ghosts (Meadowlark Press, 2022), where the poems “soothe and sin like the Blues,” as described by Todd Cirillo. She is a book designer, editor, library assistant, and co-founder of the celebrated after-hours poetry press, Six Ft. Swells Press. She goes best with a touch of salt and a kiss of lime.