HAY TRUCK
I got kicked off the hay truck smack in the middle of nowhere, about noon. By two p.m. and I
know it was two p.m. on account of the watch Billy give me, anyway by two p.m. I was a fit full of
lost so I sat down on a boulder set up against a tree and leaned on my knapsack, looked up past the
long twisty branches reaching for the sky. That sky laid out bluer than my mama’s eyes. I pulled an
apple out of my bag and took a bite or two, got lost again in my own thoughts, remembering
mama’s tears. I don’t know what happened then, maybe it was the cool breeze or the slant of the
sun, but my body hummed some kind of sweetness, and I knew peace for the first time. As if the
world stepped out to greet me and God kissed me on the forehead and told me everything was
gonna be all right. Imagine that, all on account of getting thrown off the hay truck on account of
being a girl, which they never would have known if I hadn’t a bled through my jeans.
Glint Literary Journal 