The John Wayne Cowboy Hat 

I was back out west for keeps this time 

it was time to go get a cowboy hat 

so I went down to Guadalupe Street on a cold, windy, winter-blue morning 

where all the western wear was waiting wondering when 

I was going to come and get it.

Inside, I saw a pile of Stetsons and went right for the perfect one up on top,

but it was the John Wayne Model, so I put it right back up on top 

of the stack, no way was I going to wear the John Wayne Style Hat, 

but then it hit me, goddam it

of course I’ll wear the John Wayne Style Hat!

Because I like the way he swaggers around knocking over tables, 

which I do already, but not the way he does, bullying everybody 

knocking them over, especially the women and guys who got here first, 

but he’s him and I’m me, and I’ll show him: I’ll be the left-wing, uncombed, 

feminist, cheerful, tender version of that swagger and knock him over!

I looked in the Kowboyz store mirror and saw me!

Fuck off John Wayne, though I love you anyway. 

I’ll wear your hat like I am. 

But then ... I saw that here I am in my sixties 

and there’s a hint of my mother 

in my eyes and my smile—oh no; uh oh. 

I look like my mother and I’m wearing a John Wayne cowboy hat, 

both sworn enemies, now what the hell do I do? Who am I now?

They were watching me, maybe I was beginning to look like a shoplifter 

with all this suspicious indecision and sudden identity ennui,

but I’d been arrested by all of that before

and it hit me again—NO, no way! There’s an end to that, right now!

And in that moment I looked like a buyer. 

I put on the hat, bought it with no guilty conscious 

cut off the price tag and the past

and swaggered out under the cold winter sun, hot to trot!