a100_spuds.html

A Hundred Pounds of Spuds*

She went to town that winter

in the tractor box, holding Jesse

wrapped in quilts and tears

his smashed finger oozing red

through the white towel.

n the snow splitting wood,

at our books beside the fire,

we tried to forget the stained sled,

the tumble and cries. Could it really take

an arm and a leg?and whose?

Long after milking,

when kerosene lamps were lit,

they came home in a swirling storm

and put him to bed with a green balloon

daddy said would be flat by morning.

He went out to check the cows and the sky

while mama, pulling off boots and wool sox,

said Jesse only lost the tip and for eight stitches

the doctor was going to settle

for a hundred pounds of spuds.

When the storm lay down it took two days

for daddy to plow the road. We melted

snow in a galvanized tub on the woodstove,

washed our best Red Pontiacs one at a time,

and mama put her last jar of wild-berry jam

in the top of the sack.

Tell him, Thank You, she said.

* I am pleased that this poem has been accepted for publication
in the 2000/2001 edition of Oregon East,
Eastern Oregon University's literary journal.