“The Misfits” Revisited*   When you chased, lassoed the mustangs,  tying hooves to necks of down  weighed by tires heavy as trucks,  you wrenched the galloping out of me  till I found my rage…    Butchers!  What is the spirit if not these horses  wild first to last, these zeniths, comet-  tailed, free as the sage, the mountains,  the thousand miles of it?    That is me down there in the dust.  That is you who cannot see yourself  for the sign of dog food dollars,  a cowboy’s wage, the dream  gone to blood.    Put my blood on your fingers.  Lick clean.  Let whiskey drown the taste.  The taste will come back, the beleaguering   fever and freedom here truly trotting  beyond your ropes which shake and shake.    Lost boy, lost cow poke,  I will…

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