Norman Vignette: Temptation

He plays a cowboy in a tourist attraction slowly 
     losing its attraction.
He wanders a big city, an expansive, insane place where he
     lived out his youth.
A collection of bars and clubs and shady businesses patterns
     his path.
They call him inside, beckoning to forget his spurs and
     wide-brimmed hat.
The tempt him to forget his troubles, his family problems, and
      unsympathetic friends.
He is only a man; men can resist anything
     save temptation.
A city offers more temptation than anywhere else in the
     world, he muses,
The slums of the city offer more temptation than he has ever
     been tried with.
The temptation to forget his only sister is up the road a bit, in a
     hospital bed, pale.
But such a temptation is evil and wrong and horrible for him
     to consider.
And the atmosphere shatters, and he cannot go inside
     the bar,
And he stares at the flickering neon lights above his head,
     still beckoning...
And he stares at the bouncer and the men and women littering
     the street lamp light,
And he walks on.