IT WAS A DARK AND BOVINE NIGHT

Perhaps finding it warmer than the grass
a big black cow has settled down
to sleep in a rut on a gravel road

My right wheel meets her ass
at sixty miles an hour

I’m not sure who is most surprised

Wrestling the injured truck
I avoid the almost inevitable roll
and my name in the obits

She takes a few steps into the ditch
and dies

If there’s a destiny that shapes our ends
mine was shaped by a guardian angel
hers by a Firestone tire