There is a moldy cigarette rolled in rotting paper.
It hangs from the stale, cracked lips of a man in wool socks.
He keeps one hand in his black leather jacket.
This man is covered in dust.
He is squinting.
His jaundice-yellow skin folds in reptilian rolls on his arms.
There is a crumpled piece of paper.
It is glossy.
There is a piece of paper that is crumpled and not glossy, no - it is dull.
The Marlboro Man rides paper in the dusty wind, dying.
This man laughs when he knows that he is dying and I am living.
This man cackles and roars.
His face blurs and obscures, he laughs.
He laughs like a cigarette-smoking man.
Dust rises in the air.
I squint.
There is yellow skin on my eyes.
And an American flag is on this man's shirt.
I think of spangled blurring and I am an American and a cowboy.
I am crumpled.
There is a glass eye rolling on the sidewalk, dusty and cracked.
He stood well in The War.
(And he fought like a juggernaut of America.)
He fought like a Greek hero.
He killed with the smell of smoke and leather on his teeth.
His teeth are yellow.
The smoke breathes in and scurries away.
And this man will win The War yesterday.
Back.