What is
wrong
with me?
I can speak,
and hear,
and see,
and understand when someone reads to me.
I follow lessons at school,
and Ma’s directions in the kitchen.
I know what words mean.
So why can’t I do this?
I
must
be
stupid.
54
It is morning.
There is no water,
no fuel.
It was foolish to waste time last night.
55
A sack of buffalo chips
next to the stove,
water from the stream,
coffee in the pot;
I cannot
let
myself
think.
Just do chores, May.
Keep moving,
go pick some corn.
Maybe I could try to finish the floor
Mr. Oblinger left undone.
There are only a few boards missing.
56
I bang at the boards,
not sure exactly
where to place each piece,
but figuring with so few to go,
the planks will show me where they belong.
Maybe Mr. Oblinger will
want to fix these boards
to his liking
someday.
I stop myself.
He’s never coming back.
57
I am afraid
in the dark
all alone
I am afraid
58
It started small:
Hiram’s church-going shirt left untucked,
My dirty hands at suppertime.
Then we got bold:
Sneaked a piece of cooling pie,
waded deeper in the stream
than Pa allowed.
Somehow Hiram rarely caught trouble.
That smile of his softened Ma.
Pa, grateful for extra hands,
overlooked the times Hiram forgot to milk,
misplaced the saw,
dropped his boot in the creek.
I thought of something he wouldn’t dare do.
“Get Ma’s scissors
and meet me out back.”
It was just the two of us behind the soddy,
but I leaned in close.
“Cut some of my hair.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Why’d I want to do that?”
“Afraid Ma will notice?” I sang.
“Worried Pa will tell you
to wait for him in the barn?”
“You’re daring me?” he asked.
“I am,” I said.
That was enough to stir him.
And when he grabbed at a braid
and the scissors snapped,
I scooped it up,
a four-inch rope of brown hair.
Swishing it under his nose, I told him,
“You’re going to get it tonight.”
That smile of his lit up his face.
“Don’t I know it.”
I swatted at him with the braid,
yelled, “I’m showing Ma!”
and ran.
59
It is not strange
to wear the same dress
from day to day,
but to awake,
still clothed,
and not notice
until the coffee’s made—
60
I hope Mrs. Oblinger fell off that horse
and is still wandering the prairie.
Mr. Oblinger
better be dead.
Pa deserves the mess he’s made,
sending me here.
His only daughter
abandoned
by strangers,
forgotten
by family,
left behind
by classmates,
ignored
by Teacher.
Nobody cares
about me.
I hate this place.
61
Today,
if it takes forever,
I will see the place
where the earth touches sky.
I will find it.
I will track it down.
I will not sit here and wait
for nobody to come,
for nothing to happen.
Have Hiram and I been wasting time
on a foolish game?
Today,
I will learn the truth.
Over my shoulder I check for the soddy
one time,
two times,
three.
Why did I think I’d be brave enough
to set out on my own?
How did Hiram and I
get this idea anyway?
The earth is round,
Miss Sanders told us.
She brought that globe to school,
let us pass it around.
If stories were true,
I’d follow a bread-crumb path
all the way home.
But I have no heart for fairy tales
anymore.
62
I return to the soddy,
gather pebbles at the creek,
and line them up,
a family of smooth stones.
One by one
I heave them into the water,
harder,
then harder still,
until I’m wet,
and hoarse from yelling,
and done with childish dreams.
63
I have decided
there is no need to iron
my dresses
or the linens.
And my hair,
I don’t have to pull it back
in a braid.
My coffee
doesn’t need to be hot.
Who will notice?
I think it might be September,
if I’ve counted right.
64
Some days I sit at the creek,
the sun on my back,
collecting pill bugs
from under rocks.
They curl into a ball at the slightest touch,
then,
waiting,
unfold themselves to continue their journey,
this time on my wrist,
my thumb,
the frayed cuff of my dress.
I hold them,
watch them rush,
wonder
what sort of task could hurry
such a creature along.
I lie in the sunshine,
thankful
for the freshness of the grass,
the babbling company of the stream.
65
Some days I sit in the rocker,
the quilt about me though it’s hot outside.
I shun the sunlight,
groan to think of the water I must fetch,
the steps I’ll have to take,
the work that’s needed
just to exist.
Wouldn’t it be better
to
forget
to
care?
Wouldn’t it be easier
to stay in the hazy place where dreams come,
to simply fade away?
66
I crouch under the table,
listening
to the rain
drip on the supper dishes I left out
in my rush
to stay dry.
My thoughts drift back to Teacher.
I can’t let them happen
here,
under the table,
where there’s no task to keep me busy.
67
The bedding is wet.
I try to find a way to sleep
that allows for comfor
t,
but I can’t.
My memories catch up with me.
I wonder what Teacher had to say
when I didn’t return to school?
“The girl’s finally got some sense,
staying home.”
Maybe I was only smart before Teacher came.
68
It’s because you won’t try.
Teacher,
I’ve tried more than you will ever know,
out in the barn,
with my book,
and my voice
shaking.
The words on paper
don’t match the sounds I make.
I have to memorize
to even try to read aloud.
So
if you think I can’t read,
Teacher,
then maybe you’re right.
69
Coffee,
a half sack of dried beans,
flour, sugar, and cornmeal.
The sugar’s not good for much
when eating simple things.
But the flour—
with my bit of sourdough starter—
keeps providing for biscuits
like I used to bake
with Ma.
The last of the meat ran out long ago.
A tin of peaches
is all that is left
of Mrs. Oblinger’s fine things.
I’ve told myself I must hold out longer
before I touch them.
They’re stashed,
like a promise,
behind the rest.
70
I pull the door open,
stand with my hands on my hips,
and yell into the morning:
“Guess what, Mrs. Oblinger?
I don’t think you’re too bright
yourself!”
What does it matter if she can’t hear me?
If it was long ago
she called me stupid?
“Hope you enjoyed your ride
on that lovely prairie day!”
I lift my dusty skirts,
sashay like someone fancy,
curtsy to the cabbage,
think on the missus and her eastern ways:
good riddance.
71
I have almost eaten
to the bottom of the apple barrel.
72
When the world is black,
I’m most alone,
the silence thick around me.
I pray for wind,
for rain,
for the meadowlark
to break
the constant pound of quiet.
What is that?
What is at the door?
73
A rasping sound,
a muffled breath,
a whine
outside.
Then, nothing.
My pulse surges through my fingertips
as I crack open the door.
Scratches line the heavy wood,
yellow threads cut deeply in the boards.
There are tracks
on the edge of the moonlit garden.
A wolf has been here.
I am not alone.
74
Avery Pritchard told me
that when his pa’s away
at night,
sometimes a pack of wolves surrounds their soddy.
The wolves sense a difference about the place.
They howl,
they scratch,
but mostly,
they sit and wait.
Can they smell that someone’s missing?
Do they sense the fear inside?
Mrs. Pritchard tells the children stories,
presses her forehead against the windowpane,
and says, “Get on, you!”
Last spring,
in the early dawn,
Mrs. Pritchard took the shotgun
and waited by the door.
When she heard the wolf pack stirring,
she aimed and fired.
The pack rolled off like summer storm clouds.
One skinny female lay dead.
Avery’s ma dragged that wolf to the door
and left it,
a hairy mound,
at the entrance to their soddy.
All day she stepped over it
when she went to milk
or fetch water.
She wouldn’t let anyone else outside.
When Mr. Pritchard arrived,
she didn’t say a word,
just handed him the shovel
and shut the door.
Avery’s pa buried the wolf out back.
Now,
when he has business in town,
he makes sure to hurry home
come nightfall.
75
Mr. Oblinger
took the rifle.
76
When Miss Sanders came
to teach our school,
she was the first to understand
I could get the words
from the book
to my mind
more easily if I listened to lessons.
She didn’t force me to read
in front of everyone.
Once she brought me
a book about a boy named Tom Sawyer
because she thought I’d find Tom like Hiram.
She read it during recess
just for me.
But when Miss Sanders married,
she left our school
and Teacher came.
77
The garden has given up
its last yield.
Some withered string beans,
a dozen potatoes,
five ears of corn,
one small head of cabbage,
crawling with bugs.
Days and nights run together.
Sometimes I forget how
I got to this place
or why I am still here.
78
Maybe it is October?
79
There was frost
this morning,
but it melted quickly.
There’s no time left for waiting.
There is nothing holding me here.
I can’t abide this place any longer.
80
I pack my pillowcase:
one extra dress wrapped around my worthless reader,
one stocking filled with corn bread,
one with biscuits.
On top of this,
two ears of corn
and a cup.
I button Ma’s fine boots.
I wish I had insisted on keeping Hiram’s old ones,
but I know Ma gave me hers
for herself as much as me,
a message to Mrs. Oblinger,
fresh from the city,
showing that women out here still have some grace.
My feet will hurt, I reckon,
before I make it far.
The broom’s my only weapon.
I think on Ma,
the way she swatted Hiram when he snatched the bacon.
I grasp the handle,
throw my pillowcase over one shoulder,
and step out onto the prairie.
81
How did Pa get here?
I see nothing to point the way.
I walk alongside the Oblingers’ little creek,
hoping it will lead to the river,
to a neighbor,
to the outskirts of town.
The grass has dried to silver-green;
it slaps my legs as I push forward.
Sweat trickles between my shoulder blades.
Impossible to think there was frost just this morning.
I have only the stream
and endless grasses to guide me.
82
Sometimes I see wagon ruts,
a memory presse
d in dried mud.
If western Kansas had more folks,
this would be easier.
There might be a well-worn path by now.
Grasshoppers whir,
fly about me.
I swat at them with the broom.
My stomach clenches,
so I shake some crumbled corn bread from the stocking
straight into my mouth.
Then up ahead,
I spot the jagged branches of a currant bush.
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