October 22nd, 2025
John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
American III: Solitary Man
johnny i’m only listening to you
it makes me think i’m out at midnight:
no moon, no stars
but then how are my leather boots
shining white and what light is passing through
this field that makes the dewdrops gleam
like little weapons
my denim soaks through to the muscle
but this is not gonna be how they take me
no matter how soft that noose
or how sweet that hangman’s kiss
i’d sooner ride my own brown horse down
and force her knees to buckle till i holler
‘cause it’s good to let the air taste your stomach
bite back the acid and know you’re the alien
and you’ve got the goo
now that could’ve been a madcap time
johnny but it had no sex
nor no truth
i’m sitting inside gray walls and all i have is metal
which is bitter and not whiskey
which is sweet
the tightness of my muscles is my shaking leg
on a worn-in couch and the strain in my eye
is the tv set with the great nothing
passing me and laughing johnny
how could i tell you
about the beers i should’ve sucked
like juice from moldy fruits
i never entered a woman in low light
i may have combed her hair and what tenderness
but i could not testify it
johnny my spurs are still kicking up
the lost breezes the red morning dawns
my stetson catches sun like a battery
after Johnny Cash
Heather Gluck is a poet from New York. She received her MFA from Columbia University. An alumna of the Bread Loaf Conference, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and the Iowa Summer Writers Workshop, her work can be found in The Florida Review, Palette Poetry, Plentitudes, Anthropocene, and elsewhere. She is the managing editor of Epiphany.