PUNK POETRY: Billy the Kid by Catfish McDaris

Billy the Kid

 

 

We could see the white butts of antelope

across from the Kid’s grave, we’d turn south

to the Pecos River to fish, swim, and party

 

I almost died twice there, once by drowning,

I dove in and hit a boulder under the surface,

my dad rescued my knocked-out carcass before 

the river swallowed me whole; years later in

 

The back of a pickup partying, parked in yucca,

mesquite, and creosote bush chaparral, a rhumba 

of tangled rattlesnakes attacked from the brush

 

People leaped out and ran like jackrabbits with 

coyotes in hot pursuit, now days after so much 

graffiti and desecration to Billy the Kid’s tomb-

stone, authorities have put a cage around it

 

Folks say Billy was so dangerous, even his 

ghost might escape, the red caliche dirt roads have

hills of petrified wood, crumbling adobe churches

with faded white crosses and plastic flowers in 

the church yard, tumbleweeds blown against graves.

--Catfish McDaris