• “I’ve been there,”
    he says with pride.
    The camera pans
    across skies I've seen before
    and can’t recognize.

    “I’ve done that.”
    Sparse and brittle plains grass,
    crushed under the rush of hoofbeats
    in a fanfare of Western string.
    Two cowboys and their steeds.

    Effervescent light
    spills from the television screen
    and soaks into the living room carpet.
    Fifty-seven years of shadows
    stretch and flicker across his features.
    Dad sits on the couch; I sit on the floor.

    What he really means is,
    “I wish I could do it again.”

    The cowboys rope some cattle
    and build a fire
    with rising smoke like Lady Liberty
    beneath the outwandering stars.