There's a wild-eyed girl in michigan
Not even 8 years old yet
Beetles and briars
Stuck all over her best clothes
And she knows
Mom will have her head for this
But she invades the boys' fort anyway
And gets a milk snake
To the face
Silt and clay
Streaking her hair
For her troubles
Just a typical day
She slides smiling
On the frozen hose-water
Pond her dad made in the yard
Face alight
Alike in cold and heat
Until that same gang of boys
Steers her straight into a tree
Through the bruises she's got
Dry eyes
She never cries
Grows up still
Wild-eyed
Beetles and briars
And scorpions
In hiking boots
***** cowboy hats
Hanging from the rearview
Of her muddy 4WD Jeep
She falls and scrapes her tan knees
Running from an angry bull
In some farmer's field
And all the fella's hearts
Are full
Of the curve of her back
And 30 years later
Still wild-eyed
When her doctor tells her
She's going to die
Again she doesn't cry
She just wants to hike the Grand Canyon
One more time