The tiny house on Pitcher Road
had a smaller house behind it.
I met spiders, cobwebs, wasps
An occasional small snake.
Strange smells, feelings and fears.
Two holes I might fall into,
Rough, scary in the dark,
Strange paper to wipe with.
A place to visit – not to stay.
I was four-years old.
On Miss Jessie’s farm,
On Pitcher Road in Missouri,
I graduated that spring from
A porcelain chamber pot
In her bedroom, to the outhouse.
From the fancy Seattle Hotel
with hot and cold running water,
where I had lived; from the father,
Left behind in a train station,
To a strange, new rural life.
