Sedge and the Rubbage

Daughter trilled the flat grass
'tween her thumbs, she'd smeared
her cherry lipstick to her girl-cheek,
when she'd made the grass whistle

She watched the black smoke
from Daddy's rubbage burning
'cross the farm, while she whistled

Her boy laughed, with the long grass
'tween his teeth, inattentively
lying with his hat low, like he'd seen
in so many pictures;

She was frightened
at how close he lay to the saw grass,
where the ducks stayed
through summer,

They'd be angry at how close he lay,
had they made their home there again
that summer.