Afternoons I like to drink
at Angel’s Bar on Flores Street
the table against the wall where three
bullet holes let in the sunlight.
The bar is half an hour in
from Mazatlán airport, you know
on that dusty two lane road
that looks pretty damn third world
just past shantytown
and the Federal Pen.
I heard Angel’s boyfriend Tony
walked in one night
and caught her sitting in the lap
of some rich Arizona cowboy
his hand up her skirt
her tongue down his throat.
It don’t take much more than that
to get yourself shot
on that end of Flores Street
and everybody knows Tony totes
an old army Colt inside his boot.
I heard he whipped it out
as Angel dove to the sawdust floor
faster than a cheap prize fighter
just before three shots lit up the night.
The first one shattered a whiskey bottle
the second one severed Angel’s ear
the third caught the cowboy in the scrotum.
It ended just that fast
with blood splattered everywhere
and Mexicans running out the door.
Tony was still standing there
smoking gun in hand
when the police rushed in and cuffed him.
I don’t know how much is true
or how much is bar room lore
but I’ve been around long enough to know
there’s always a woman involved
when it comes to bullet holes in a wall.
Author notes
a revised version of this poem appears in Travis Blair's new poetry book, Train to Chihuahua, published by Old Seventy Creek Press.
- Cisco 12/16/08
Comments
1 - 9 of 9
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Lol And women will do it to ya all the damn time but i guess it must be a pleasurable thing cos it hasn't stopped in all the years I have been reading about
This just reeks of cigars and Pancho mustache's and lots of whiskey! Loved it. 
C
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I haven't read you for yonks and love your writing. I feel as though I am in a fucking spaghetti western - I just love it!
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oh... a day with a new cisco poem is a good day indeed
and the poem... suberb.
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suburb? nope... superb
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I appreciate that, jan.
I've been out of the country. -
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I'd say for far too long, except that this is the result.
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thanks.
I've been having a little luck since I got back. In the last 3 weeks I've had 4 poems accepted for publication
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Cisco is back!
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well, thank you suzi!
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