Your Ass

Your Ass
by Lewis MacAdams Jr.
I study a deep, green painting
and dream of ‘your ass’
I am sitting in this sidewalk cafe
trying to master
the lost music of Hank Johnson
Anything arbitrary is tough to choke down
a brown tin ashtray, black coffee
empty Greek cigarette pack
someone is here
he must have come down alone
wanting a drink of water
it is dangerous, he hoped
to write the new language
it is like a stringy westerner
from down the line
singing alone
the music of the country
doesn’t “flare”
it sidles up like need
bow-legged
and coughing
it’s as if there were a cow pony
behind me
he cries and is saying
the only word
he knows in my language
“your ass”
and it was taught
by Hank Johnson
Even that
saving grace
is now gone
wandering through the crowded room
bowing, awarding
the correct change
so being swallowed
like the old west itself
and the obscenities and cold water
of Hank Johnson