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Eleven In the Sticks
by Earl Coleman

When she was very young she’d gone down
to the spur long discontinued then and wished
that she could travel as she walked the ties,
then shoeless, toughening her feet against
the splintered wood the color of her Uncle Zan
when he came back from San Juan Hill, rough
riding still, and dandled her upon his knee
and handled her, and then she wished
that she could travel far from cows and daddy
crawling pie-eyed in the door at two, and Randy
making fun of her because he had his thing
and she had none, and wished that she’d
grow bosoms soon like Cecily and Maud
who seemed to know important things,
like how to grow a way to travel out of here.