Cowboys

Cowboys ride the trains at night now
and circle the cities that broke all their dreams.
They long for their women in lavender dresses
that moved to the ocean to live on their own.
They won’t ever cry, but sit smoking Reds-
and smile at the flicker of “was”.
'Cause the sun has been setting on the moments they blessed
since the day that they built that first fence.
And they carry the weight of the mountains forgotten
in the feel of their blue, denim shirts.
Hands, swollen from wrestling the sweet life that bore them,
till the highwaymen swallowed the West.

Yes,
there are still cowboys,
I’ve seen them at midnight,
Riding the trains all alone.

Tipping their hats to the graves in their chests
that remember the earth as a child.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry