Cotter Key

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.