WAITING FOR ACTION. 1956.

A BOY AND GIRL IN LONDON IN 1956 AND COWBOY ACTION.

I slide the silver painted six shooter
into the holster on my right hand side.
I stand there arm arched, hand ready
to go for the gun. I push my cowboy

hat back away from my cool forehead.
The bad guys are circling me. Today
I’m Wyatt Earp, the day before I was
Bill Hickok, shot in the back while

playing cards with some blonde floozy.  
One of the bad guys goes for his gun,
I go for my gun before his is out of
his holster, I’ve got him between the

eyes, then the other before he can say:
What the heck, then the other before
his gun reaches to his eye. I blow along
the barrel as they do in films, put it

back in my holster. My mother irons
clothes in the other room. My sister
plays with dolls, in the long hallway.
None heard the gunshots inside my head;

all bad guys are dead.   I light up a
thin sweet cigarette and light it on an
imaginary match struck on the wall.  
Half hour later I see Ingrid on the

balcony. She talks of going to the
park to go on the swings and slide.
She has her brown hair held in place
with hair clips, mild buckteeth, brown

gravy eyes gaze at me. What you been
doing? she asks. Cleaning up the West.
West what? She says. Wild West, I reply.
She nods, uncertain, uninterested. Shot

three baddies. Bang, bang, bang. I push
back my thumb and point two fingers.
I am Wyatt Earp today. You were Bill
Hickok yesterday, she says, looking at

my two fingers aiming at her narrow chest.
What happened to Hickok? She asks.
He 's dead. Oh, she mouths.  I put my
fingers away in my trouser pocket. Swings?

She says. I guess. So we walk off together
down the stairs, she wearing a red flowery
dress, white ankle socks, black plimsolls.
I look down the stairs well for any bad guys

lurking, gun ready in my trouser pocket,
Bowie knife in the belt around my waist.
She talks of a new skipping rope her mother
has bought her, I see no one lurking, no baddies

waiting with guns out. We walk through the
Square, out in the open, my two fingers posed
for action, my Bowie knife ready to throw,
off we walk towards the park we slowly go.