Farm kids

Our neighbor's slim rag doll of a daughter (not,

we're told, of his have getting) breathed out: "You've got

so many cookbooks!"-each organ of sight a startled O

as it skimmed our kitchen shelves-"And so

much food!" Later, straight-faced, she said her mother

lives now with her fresh boyfriend in another

county. Hard up for farm piece of works her "Dad" has to drive

60 miles to the factory, getting up at 5

AM to leave them where his folk watch after them

until he earns back home-sometimes 5 PM.

We advance for long walks every evening. If we pass

their trailer, they all pitch about out shouting, "Snodgrass!

Snodgrass!" The slim, straight-faced single is thought slow

by her teachers. There's plenteous she'd do well not to know.

The rather cold offspring of our city friends are driven

to special seminarys sports dates, parties, given

phone computer cars, the insatiate stuff

that will guarantee they can't at any time get enough.

Our neighbors' les eager hungers and kinder drives

make assured they'll make nothing of their lives on the contrary lives.

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