Ask any given Matador
on any given Sunday
where the dagger will fall
where the bull will lay
Ask them with a fool’s grin
when, and what calendar day
the stage will swallow them
as lovers wail for them
while on the red earth, they lay
“Some things are certain”
the Matador might say
“any moment may take you
on any given Sunday”
Your convoy set out from the truck stop
fashionably later than you’d planned
and there was excitement in your eyes
as we came together across
an asphalt ocean still oozing morning mist
after a rain that came and went.
I imagine the storm clouds
headed west with you, bouncing along
behind the u-haul and that car
you didn’t want to buy brand new.
From here on the homestead I wonder
how you’ll find all the flat land
and if the prairie will please you
the way the stories do,
oh Pikeville pioneer.
