ustxtxb_obs_2005_01_21_50_00021-00000_000.pdf

POETRY OLD COWBOY PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB I saw an old cowboy The light The world at the Post Office in my room enters on the other day, is pale, a breeze, making his way quiet, quietly to his old pickup truck. soft. blowing He was thin as a rail, Enter gauzy boots scuffed to hell. slowly curtains His face was so as aside. droopy like not to I am not his mustache, disturb asleep. his best part. my light. I am He had on faded Don’t closed. Wranglers, make Don’t make maybe 28 X 34. turbulence me open. I could see him in my room. I rest through his cowboy shirt. I need in the Looked like he would cry quiet, pale at the drop of his dirty hat. soft, quiet But worst of all for my of my was his mail. life. room. He had in his hand The light I am a sale flyer, in my room trying and nothing else. is mid way to see With one hand between my slapping it on his other hand gray feelings, looking up and down the street. and white. with my No sound. eyes closed. K.B. Whitley K.B. WHITLEY was born and raised in southwest Louisiana. He is university educated in the study of economics and retired to Marfa, Texas, from large-corporate, big-city East Texas. He writes because it enables him. Naomi Shihab Nye 1/21/05 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21