The Mighty Red

by Louise Erdrich

for the dinner. He couldn’t sit still, bounced

done with the opulent mercy of women.

And she liked the work. The only thing wrong with the job was how her feet sweat. Otherwise she could have walked for years in the fatal sunshine, over the poisoned earth, occasionally blessed by the acid rain, chemically altered by an occasional crop duster.

Given righteous cause, the family-values people of field and town became a pitiless one-minded beast.