Pony Girl
tipped her
hat to Madam
Antonella "Ma'am,
we will drink from
steer horns, I will
not get The Sundance
Wives out of town," no
copy was ever to be found
of the circuit rider's telegram,

Pony Girl
walked soft
like crossing
a gypsum flat,
through the shards,
that son-of-a-bitch
bandana-masked outlaw
shot all the Mason jars,
he took coins and the China
man's opium roots, old time
glass flew off the bar shelf,
saloon patrons poured liquor
and drank from their boots,

The
Sundance
Wives horses
tied at the livery
stable, curtains upstairs
untied at the dressing table,
pulling the soft velvet
pleats together, Sage drew
passion to a dark room, for
what was about to happen,
Pussy seeking to share in 
the "colony's placer claim",

across
the street,
A.J. hand drew
it there, the map,
in the house of prayer,
hid the map to the circuit
rider judge's next trial, in
the back of the church organ,

she
saw the
preacher
coming from
the cloak room
where hung the
oilcloth duster
and bandana of the
outlaw, preacher picking
glass out of his arm, praying
to God on the pew, made honestly,
from oak, A.J. saw him bleed on
the Philadelphia Mint he took
from the saloon till, it had
been all still, until she, his
accomplice came in, the English
teacher and the preacher,

Blaze
came into
the darkened
room upstairs
above the saloon,
said, "you first,
my god, if I never
taste another drink,
I'll have had you," two
wives locked the door, whip
leaning in between moral, the
spinning wheel and obligation,
the weaving loom, 

Pony Girl's
spurs coming
up the stairs,
Blaze's hands
all over Sage's
breasts, lips
mashed upon one
another in sacred
oath of acorn fire,
she fell hard upon
Sage on the bed in
lover's alliance,
there is no reason
to think this memory
has faded, Pony Girl's
spur rowels knocking on
the door, "Nine Nails to
Hell!" as is for accuracy,
the cliffhangar smells of
searing leather embe dded on
the linen 1894, the scream
of rawhide leaves its marks...

A.J.
climbed
in the window,
her frozen compass
needle on the pillowcase
right where it lay.

Copyright 10/08/2009 Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist