Backdrop addresses cowboy by Margaret Atwood : Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Project

Backdrop addresses cowboy

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Born in Ottawa, Canada, Margaret Atwood (1939—) is one of the most prominent literary figures of her country. She has published prolifically

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By Margaret Atwood

Starspangled cowboy

sauntering out of the almost-

silly West, on your face

a porcelain grin,

tugging a papier-mâché cactus

on wheels behind you with a string,

you are innocent as a bathtub

full of bullets.

Your righteous eyes, your laconic

trigger-fingers

people the streets with villains:

as you move, the air in front of you

blossoms with targets

and you leave behind you a heroic

trail of desolation:

beer bottles

slaughtered by the side

of the road, bird-

skulls bleaching in the sunset.

I ought to be watching

from behind a cliff or a cardboard storefront

when the shooting starts, hands clasped

in admiration,

but I am elsewhere.

Then what about me

what about the I

confronting you on that border,

you are always trying to cross?

I am the horizon

you ride towards, the thing you can never lasso

I am also what surrounds you:

my brain

scattered with your

tincans, bones, empty shells,

the litter of your invasions.

I am the space you desecrate

as you pass through.