Read The Collected Works of Billy the Kid for Free Online Page A

know her—her mind the only one in town high on the pox
    Miss Angela D has a mouth like a bee
she eats and off all your honey
her teeth leave a sting on your very best thing
and its best when she gets the best money
    Miss Angela Dickinson
blurred in the dark
her teeth are a tunnel
her eyes need a boat
    Her mouth is an outlaw
she swallow your breath
a thigh it can drown you
or break off your neck
    Her throat is a kitchen
red food and old heat
her ears are a harp
you tongue till it hurt
    Her toes take your ribs
her fingers your mind
her turns a gorilla
to swallow you blind
    (thankin yew

*
    Angela—hand shot open
water blood on my shoulder
crying quiet
O Bonney you bastard Bonney
kill him Bonney kill him
    this from Angela
she saying this when their bullet for me
split her wrist so flesh burst out
    Watching me do it.
Took a knife and opened the skin
more, tugged it back
on the other side of her arm
to pick the bullets out
3 of them
like those rolled pellet tongues of pigeons
    look at it, I’m looking into your arm
nothing confused in there
look how clear
Yes Billy, clear

*
    So we are sitting slowly going drunk here on the porch. Usually it was three of us. Now five, our bodies on the chairs out here blocking out sections of the dark night. And the burn from the kerosene lamp throwing ochre across our clothes and faces. John in the silent rocking chair bending forward and back, one leg tucked under him, with each tilt his shirt smothering the light and spiralling shadows along the floor. The rest of us are quieter. Garrett sits on the sofa with Sallie the quietest of us all. He doesnt talk much I’ve noticed and mostly listens. Sallie her legs out resting on the chair at the ankles, the long skirt falling like a curtain off her legs and touching the floor. The cat shifts in her lap. And just to my left, her leg dangling off the rail she sits on, Angela D, the long leg about a foot to my left swaying, the heel tapping the wooden rail.
    The thing here is to explain the difference of this evening. That in fact the Chisum verandah is crowded. It could of course hold a hundred more, but that John and Sallie and I have been used to other distances, that we have talked slowly through nights expecting the long silences and we have taken our time thinking the replies. That one was used to the space of black that hung like cotton just off the porch lights’ spill. At one or two then Sallie would get up and bring me the cat and leave to make coffee and get ready for bed. And come back with the three cups and changed into her nightgown, always yellow or white with fabulous bows at her shoulders and the front of her neck. And then hunch up the gown over her folded legs so we joked at her looking like a pelican or some fat bird with vast stomach and short legs. But she didnt move from that, said her legs against herself kept herself warm for the wind had begunnow, a slight flapping against the house. And it is now one and Sallie gets up and the cat stays on the sofa in the warm pool of material where she was. And Angela stretches and says bed I guess and I say no we are having coffee now and she leans back and later Sallie brings mugs in on a tray this time. And we all laugh a little cos Garrett has fallen asleep. Nobody noticed it in the semi dark. He hasnt moved an inch. Just the eyes closed. But the coffee tonight doesnt do much for the drink. That is, we are all pretty loaded here and in fact we go back to the whisky. And my throat now feels nothing as the drinks go down. I wonder how Angie can balance on the rail; as I do, she slips down near me and tho I cant see Sallie’s eyes I think she must be watching us.
    We sit here drinking on, after the coffee. Garrett here but asleep, Sallie, John, and the two of us. My eyes are burning from the pain of change and the whisky and I cant see very well, John’s rocker is going slow but his checkered shirt leaves just a red arc daze like some blurred picture. I remember, when they took the