Guilty by Association, Cooperation, and Orchestration

Cigar smoke hangs quietest on back porches in Missouri
In a twilight that can only have blue eyes
While Jesse James cleans his revolver
And smiles wide like an ice cream parlor

Jesse James was present at my birth
Holding me high over his head and hat
I was still covered in blood
When he told my father I was his boy

He told me a man is defined by his first bank robbery
And not by the size of his coffin
He told me when a man kills a woman’s husband
He should send her orchids and not sunflowers

The clerks and patrons are holding their hands over their heads
As if they were holding me on my birthday
And I can think of nothing finer
Than being shot in the head by Jesse James