A young farm girl learns
the fine art of lining up
a wagon tongue with
a tractor’s towing hitch,
dropping in a bolt, securing it
with a cotter key.
—
She learns to watch gates
while the tractor chugs through,
hauling the wagon
to drop off hog troughs,
she keeps porkers away
from the gate and escaping.
—
She learns to wear a shower cap
while painting her inventor-father’s
winter projects, a pig feeder,
a gravity wagon, lest she ride
to school with barn-red
paint in her hair.
—
To scrape mud from
cultivator shovels while
Dad is in for noon dinner,
which she had stirred
the gravy for and made from scratch
his favorite spice cake.