Uh-oh

A few of us in our past lives have looked up to see the scene of a bull headed straight for us with murder in his eyes. At first, when he spots us, he begins with the warning ritual of throwing dirt with his hooves. In his eyes a picture of the most hateful thing in the world forms, something to be eliminated from his space. He begins his deep-throated bellowing and starts his tail-high trot towards us, then lowers his head to come in a full gallop. It sticks in your memory and you write a poem:

Ma always warned me that bull,
ornery and mean,
would charge me if he had half a chance.

A young boy needs to test new theories
as they come along,
so I proceeded to play

in the barnyard like before
since there were badmen
who needed to be brought to justice.

They always hung out in the pasture.
I was the sheriff
who stood for law and order

and locked up crooks in my jail
(the barn's lean-to shed).
One evening while the folks milked the cows

I set out to correct more unchecked
wrongs and discovered
theorem proof: that bull was mean!

On crook-lookout I spotted
the desperado
scratching clouds of dust into the air,

signaling utter contempt for me,
the agent of good.
His trot in my direction

quickened to high-tailed gallop.
Matt Dillon would make
sound decisions in situations

such as this where I now found myself,
I became entrapped
on the roof of my own jail.