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At The Best Steakhouse In San Francisco
[after Ezra Pound's poem, "Black Slippers: Bellotti"]
At San Francisco's finest steakhouse: across from us,
the rancher, Pete Maxwell, and his sister
dine, invited guests of the others with them---
pounds of juicy steak, and exotic salads. From
her stockinged feet, Pete Maxwell's sister has
slipped off expensive, fancy shoes---imports from France.
She talks politely, but her eyes confess
complete boredom with the conversation.
Is she thinking of other words, perhaps?---
words spoken by a soft, lone voice---
"Quien es?"
---and then the flash, from deep shadow, of a coward's gun.
Three years and the memory is fresh as today's butchered meat.
After dessert, she slips the shoes on to her silk-stockinged
feet. The look on her face is like witnessed murder.
Billy would not have liked those shoes on her:
he wanted her barefoot all day; and stockings after dusk.
Shot by a coward who has never stopped bragging about it,
shot like a trapped coyote, with no more of a chance than that,
he does not have to be the Kid any more;
he does not have to be the terror of New Mexico; not any more.
At the end he was just Billy, beloved of Paulita Maxwell.
He is dead only to those who do not understand him,
but alive in her heart---and there, he is just Billy.
