The Country I Am From

by E. I. Pruitt

Chickens are for meat, eggs. A horse
eats as much as it pulls: a scoop of grain
for a day's work. Men
are not fussy, particular
about what they eat. They smell like
grass, motor oil, sun.
A pond is for fish, fishing
for eating. Farm is not country—
domestication is key: The grass
folds over where it is told,
edges of the crop field
cut by a carpenter’s square,
fencelines a study
in geometry. The cows, chickens,
wife, stock and men—
all punctual to the sun,
feeding hour, chores.
At the end of the day
everything is clean, stowed:
the greased blades and shears;
the wet iron weight of denim and flannel
dried on the line,
folded in square stacks in the drawers;
the sheets hung in the night
to dry crisp from morning dew;
boots lined up, sentries
on the porch outside the door.
Mud clods, manure, leaves, dust
snubbed at the jam. All the patient
work for a clean quiet night,
people fed, an end as calm
and suitably attended as the birth.

 

E. I. Pruitt’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in recent issues of The Carolina Quarterly, Lake Effect: A Journal of the Literary Arts, The Gihon River Review, and The South Dakota Review. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at the Illinois University at Carbondale. (10/2003)