This one won't obscure the issue
under the black brim of metaphor.
It won't equivocate in deference to
your delicacies. It will bang the saloon
doors askew, halt the ragtime
of companionable assent. It will fix you
in its sightline until you rethink your taciturn
objections and deal out an honest hand.
We all know that no one will pay for the stanza
or two it takes for any hanging judge
to ride back into relevance. So stable your
censure, pour yourself a sarsaparilla on me
and damn the vigilante repercussions --
I expect them to be rugged, damned deadly and slim.