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Out of the Dust
by
Karen Hesse
As summer wheat came ripe,
so did I,
born at home, on the kitchen floor.
Ma crouched,
barefoot, bare bottomed
over the swept boards,
because that’s where Daddy said it’d be best.
I came too fast for the doctor,
bawling as soon as Daddy wiped his hand around
inside my mouth.
To hear Mom tell it,
I hollered myself red the day I was born.
Red’s the color I’ve stayed ever since.
Daddy named me Billie Jo.
He wanted a boy.
Instead,
he got a long-legged girl
with a wide mouth
and cheekbones like bicycle handles.
He got a redheaded, freckle-faced, narrow-hipped girl
with a fondness for apples
and a hunger for playing fierce piano.
From the earliest I can remember
I’ve been restless in this
little Panhandle shack we call home,
always getting in Ma’s way with my
pointy elbows, my fidgety legs.
By the summer I turned nine Daddy had
given up about having a boy.
He tried making me do.
I look just like him,
I can handle myself most everywhere he puts me,
even on the tractor,
though I don’t like that much.
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