Nebraska Summer

Back in 1964, my cousin
Barb Kohlmorgan stretched
my summer days
taut across Nebraska wheat fields.
She taught me to drive a tractor. I buried more
corn than I weeded. She taught me to shoot
prairie dogs peeking out of their holes
and to ride a horse across the endless pastures.
She taught me to flirt with her own best friend's boy.
I was a piece apart
growing up in California
known so little.

When Bub lay me on my back on the riverside
and leaned over to take what pleased him,
I flicked sand into his eyes, two fisted,
and rolled safely out of reach.
"Bitch" was his last word to me.

Barb and I shared the basement room
on the farm. A big double bed with eiderdown quilts
where either of us could get lost and solitary.
But one night I snuggled close.
The boys at the campfire had mumbled stories
about a boy...the next town over.
He was a whiny kid and the older boys, almost men,
ran a circle around him out in the corral,
pulled down his jeans and shorts
and cut him like a gelding.

My imagination soured my stomach
left my elbows quaking.
I watched for a morning newspaper.
Never saw a word.
Some things are too secret
to see the light of day.
Still, now, 40 years later
I wonder if he had lost his manhood
irredeemably,
or if the boys around the first
liked to start the new, untamed girl trembling.

A Hermit Holds My Heart
Ellen Porter
Benetvision