Wright, Carolyne

English

SWOSU Digital Commons (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)

Volume 21Issue 1 Fall/Winter Article 1111-15-2001Farm Outside OswegoCarolyne WrightFollow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westviewPart of the Fiction Commons, Nonfiction Commons, Photography Commons, and the PoetryCommonsThis Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals atSWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Westviewby an authorized administrator of SWOSU Digital Commons. For moreinformation, please contact phillip.fitzsimmons@swosu.edu.Recommended CitationWright, Carolyne (2001) "Farm Outside Oswego," Westview: Vol. 21 : Iss. 1 , Article 11.Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westview/vol21/iss1/11Farm Outside Oswegoby Carolyne WrightAmidst the jumble of half-lived lives— gutted chairs, rusted Westinghouses piled in sheds, cattle shelters crumbling under half a century of wind— the fat farm wife plays Scrabble, selecting each piece carefully as if she held it up to an egg light.Her grown son, out from town, lounges with his coffee in the playroom, cranes to watch words branch out on the boards.Begging their pardons, we have stepped in from the stable, asked to use the john.We wipe our hands on streaked towels.The Franklin stove glowers as we pass.The farm wife picks another letter with a connoisseur’s deliberation.Outside, flatbeds— driven into pasturefor the last time— drown in the timothy,and rusted tractor hullssurround the new, flame-red John Deerelike chokecherry on the apple trunks.Holstein heifers starefrom hock-deep mire by the bam,and the farm cur grovels, the whipped lookwhite in the comer of his eyes.We visit the crippled pony last, gaze at his curled, Aladdin-slipper hooves, the stagger as he weaves, bam-bound, from side to side of the stall.As we leave, we do not pat him: what would change it?14 W E S T V I E WIn the house. Scrabble fragments jostle for attention—  strangle-vines for the sun.The woman remembers, moves for the stove, the clumsy loaves hot on her reddened hands.At the back door, oat mash for the Angusses, supper sandwiches arranged like letters on the smorgasbord. After the animals, they’ll eat in silence, farm-style.We start down the dirt track to the car.The son slips out the back door with the pail,past pine poles stackedfresh as a vocabulary of good intentions.He gazes after us, his face blank as the spaces between words.We wave. He raises one hand slow ly and gabbles once, as if the wooden letters were log-jammed in his throat, then turns and trudges toward the pasture along fences downed years ago by the wind.Photo by Clwryl Scout rye Moody©1982 by Carolync Wright; from /  remonitions o f an Uneasy Guest (Hardin-Simmons University Press)W E S T V  I E W 15

Farm Outside Oswego

https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2097&amp;context=westview

Farm Outside Oswego

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