Jackie

half a section in the short grass at the foot of the plains

grows broomweed in the dry times, ragweed when it rains

it’s all she’s got left that the lawyers don’t claim

Jackie does her damn best, never one to complain

she’s been green breaking horses when she’s home from the road

waiting on dispatch to find her a load

she leased all but the trap, ponies can’t graze a thing

another bobtail of coastal ought to last them ’til spring

there were pitchers on the tables and kids running ‘round

four generations of a blinking light town

it was the Cotton Eyed Joe or maybe just the right glance

she got to going with Randy at the Friday night dance

(chorus)

I just got two rules, if my conscience be known

don’t lie to me, don’t bring me nothing home

faithful’s a nice word in Sunday school class

life’s just too crazy for that

Randy says not to worry, he’ll feed while she’s gone

she’s got the Freightliner idling half up on his lawn

he don’t like her driving when the northers come blue

but if the horses went hungry Lord knows what she’d do

‘round Christmas up the Caprock you can see all the towns

and the courthouses lit up for ten miles around

it’s a magical time to be traveling the roads

watch the country roll by in the halogens’ glow

(chorus)

she jack knifed on black ice with an oversized load

there’s a white cross in the borrow ditch where she went off the road

she wasn’t going that fast, the responders all say

how it ended that bad, we can wonder all day