Outlaw Resurrection
                Butch Cassidy's sister insisted he returned from Bolivia and lived in Spokane,
                Washington until his death in 1937.

Banks aren't what they used to be. And trains,
money-poor, move too fast to stop now. You earn
by honest work or learn the grifter's games.
Honest dollars don't stay in your pocket.
The shine of the watch chain curved
across the store keeper's moon belly winks
the dull varnish of coins, silver moons
dumped in your sack by tellers who moved

with one eye locked on the pistols leveled at them.
Hard to hold a gun on a man without
a little tremor in your hand. Now the small gun
nestled beneath his arm waits for the day
he hears a name left buried beneath the equator,
a name that means shoot or run. It wasn't
the first name he rode away from. Names,
after all, are changed as easily as a pair of boots.

A friend he died with shook his hand on a train
that stopped in New Jersey. Now he gets a box
of salt water taffy every Christmas. He gives away
the candy, never says where it came from. Being dead
teaches a man to watch his tongue. Some words—
mine, Pinkerton, horse—are no longer needed.
Evening comes. Tellers lock their drawers.
The shift whistle blows. He buys groceries

for a single man, one with few wants, beefsteak,
a cigar, a few bottles or beer or a bit of brandy
to stretch the last hours of thinning light
while it is still warm enough to sit outside
and soak up the last drops of light before
the past comes galloping like a posse,
hellbent out of the cinders of old banks,
waving headlines that were ash long ago.

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Copyright © 2022 Al Maginnes All rights reserved
from Kestrel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission