Deadwood Passage

an eyelid twitch, a nervous cough become longing tells
his Wild Bill eyes smoothed into blandness

an old habit learned and worn between fat moments
when everything moves too fast for any but the narrowest openings

a wilderness he lived in with a few other solitary hostiles
shooting at trespassers as would-be settlers

his sleepy look fooled even some who knew better
by now each player was a small notebook in his mind

body-and-face sketches matching cards thrown down in an hour
of feigned inattention, small losses and larger wins

but he’d sat where people could walk behind him
whiskey straight near 40; old age for a gunman

a sharp pop of a percussion cap directly behind him
felt a well-known surge no aim needed at that distance

saw a fat young armed thug in a mirror
that hadn’t been there a moment ago and wasn’t now

saw a yellow-white flash he knew he couldn’t see
knew he was on the other side of a fat moment

where he’d sent so many others with head-shots
seeing them thrown back by the blow

that time in Jefferson County four half-drunk cowboys
against him in a street, dropped three with head-shots

wounded the fourth; fat moments have two speeds at once
he called them fast-and-slow, knew you need

the slow to see and the fast to act, need to tune to the slow
as he did at cards coiled for narrow offerings quickly rescinded

saw two thin lights beam briefly by him, a misfire not happening
and him lurching immediately to his right not happening

felt himself thrown forward long red hair sprayed out his cards 8s and aces
flailing halfway to the table he was back in Abilene

in a hotel room with a sleeping woman and a window
sitting naked on the bed smoking a cigar

watching a half-moon draw straight up like a card back image
slowly decisively into blank black sky and wild silence

Don Brandis is a retired healthcare worker who writes poems because Wallace Stevens and Tomas Transformer did, has done so for many years, has published 6 volumes of poetry, and has published single poems here and at Red Fez and other places. He has a poetry blog here.