The Bumper Car Cowboy Turns Blue by Sean Faletti

Poetry editor Sara Daniels on today’s poem: In “The Bumper Car Cowboy Turns Blue,” Sean Faletti explodes a single bar scene into a sonic, technicolor frenzy of wannabes, whiskey, and weeping. Dizzying, dangerous characters lurk in this modern Western to pull us—speaker and readers alike—along the knife’s edge of beauty and violence. Turns out both are blue. See for yourself.

the bumper car cowboy turns blue

I met Sandra Shaudry a few hours ago at The Ohio Oakleaf, that old hipster-saloon that reeks of wood and whiskey, where wannabes slouch with pool cues and craft beers, cradled, swathed, and framed in lights that sing sangria. I got in for double cover, ordered a double tequila. Sandra was at the bar with Buck the brute, owner of the coffee shop, Buck’s Beans. He brewed up a one-sided conversation, started to get pokey, and Sandra balked, so I rode over, masquerading as her brother, and Buck shrunk into his beanie, eyed the dartboard like a cobra. Sandra bought me shots, of what, don’t know, until I ended up buying, how many, can’t recall, ‘til she scribbled her number and a haiku on a napkin. She left and I began to read, O, brother, the glow... but I got hungry, so I ate the napkin and wept for the poem alone, ‘til the bartender saw paper stuck to my lips. He booted me. I stumbled to the door. I never thought The O’ would help me dig up my first tears in years, an oasis spouting in the desert of my soul. Maybe roomfuls of bumper car bodies, packed together, playing and grinning, sweat you down, melt you kinder, like the ice chips in a Long Island Iced Tea after you shake it, as vodka, gin, rum and tequila settle into one. Ten paces out the door, I got thumped by Buck and his baristas, the fragile ego of petty bourgeoisie on full display, but, O, brother, I bet I glowed like Bombay Sapphire in the ambulance.