I am the outlaw in the black hat.
My shiny black boots match
my shiny black gun. A horse
is what I am wanting
the worst. I used to have a horse.
I named it Want
for sport. Want died.
With one quick lick
of a scythe, I cut up the head
of lettuce
for Want to eat.
I cut the short
wheat into a yellow path
for Want to enter through.
It ran from me, Want.
It made me mad
that it was man enough
to do so. I laughed
in the face of Want.
When it opened its head
to let out a sound
with my last three bullets
I stopped it.
Where my heart should be
there is a cold, cold wind.
I hurt myself
for it, its nothingness
and its quiet.
Poem of the Week
Western
Izzy Casey
Izzy Casey is a writer and editor based in NYC. Her poems have been published in Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, Black Warrior Review, Bennington Review, BOAAT, The Columbia Review, NY Tyrant, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was the recipient of a fellowship with the Poetry Foundation.
Originally published:
January 19, 2022