Susan R. Morritt

Beautiful Bill

Windsor Raceway, 1973

Cinnamon sprinkled, red and brown

right down to the stubble, right down

to the nicotine-stained fingers, retrieving the butt

from between those lips, square cowboy teeth.

“Get off my foot, you little shit.”

Nonchalant, so Marlon Brando, James Dean.

A rebel with a torn running shoe,

and a skinny girl with glasses

in the tinder-dry grass, one grazing horse.

Susan R. Morritt is a writer, visual artist and musician from Waterford, Ontario, Canada. Her prose, poetry and visual art appear in numerous magazines including 34 Orchard, The Rabbit Hole Writer Co-op Anthology, Third Estate Art’s Decapitate Journal, The Speckled Trout Review, and Does It Have Pockets. She was short-listed for The Staunch Short Fiction Prize, long-listed for The Redbud Writing Project Coppice Prize, as well as others. Susan is a former racehorse trainer who has worked extensively with livestock.

Susan R. Morritt

Beautiful Bill

Windsor Raceway, 1973

Cinnamon sprinkled, red and brown

right down to the stubble, right down

to the nicotine-stained fingers, retrieving the butt

from between those lips, square cowboy teeth.

“Get off my foot, you little shit.”

Nonchalant, so Marlon Brando, James Dean.

A rebel with a torn running shoe,

and a skinny girl with glasses

in the tinder-dry grass, one grazing horse.

Susan R. Morritt is a writer, visual artist and musician from Waterford, Ontario, Canada. Her prose, poetry and visual art appear in numerous magazines including 34 Orchard, The Rabbit Hole Writer Co-op Anthology, Third Estate Art’s Decapitate Journal, The Speckled Trout Review, and Does It Have Pockets. She was short-listed for The Staunch Short Fiction Prize, long-listed for The Redbud Writing Project Coppice Prize, as well as others. Susan is a former racehorse trainer who has worked extensively with livestock.

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