May B. Read Online Free Page A

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 pressed 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.
          Late-summer birds have picked over
          the berries that remain.
          I grab at what’s left,
          red-black juice staining my fingers,
          eating,
          eating,
          pocketing the dry ones,
          squatting until my knees ache.
          I stand and stretch,
          look behind me,
          recognizing nothing.
          Something rustles,
          and I reach for the broom.
          Like me,
          the animal freezes.
          We stay that way
          until my shoulders throb.
          Then
          a jackrabbit leaps beside me.
          I drop the broom,
          fall back,
          glimpse it dashing zigzag.
          My breath comes short
          and painful.
          “It was a rabbit,” I say,
          but the words mean nothing
          to the weakness creeping up my legs.
          Here’s what’s true:
          Already
          the evening sky is pushing back the daylight.
          Gooseflesh tingles on my arms.
          I don’t know where I am,
          I can’t know where I’m going.
          And suddenly,
          I’m running
          back!
          I’m running—
          my heels slam into the hard-packed earth.
          Running—
          my breath’s jagged.
          Running—
          birds scatter from their grass nests.
          I need those walls around me!
          The pillowcase slaps my back.
          Pain rips through my ankle.
          I tumble to the