Selected Poems
Stingy Jack
Stingy Jack speared slits into soil by a hook and a crooked spade.
He struck the handles hard on a stump and frightened the fairies away.
Stingy Jack combed the clods, grasped and yanked out a turnip tossed aside
with tufts of grass like uncut hair. He hooted his delight in blind man's luck.
Stingy Jack washed the hoofs of his hands in wild onions and earth
then rabbit flopped back, leaning on the crest of a run off ditch.
Stingy Jack banged steel spoons off his thigh and heel of his thumb.
Behind new clouds of rising dust, he sang a round of this old man.
He struck the handles hard on a stump and frightened the fairies away.
Stingy Jack combed the clods, grasped and yanked out a turnip tossed aside
with tufts of grass like uncut hair. He hooted his delight in blind man's luck.
Stingy Jack washed the hoofs of his hands in wild onions and earth
then rabbit flopped back, leaning on the crest of a run off ditch.
Stingy Jack banged steel spoons off his thigh and heel of his thumb.
Behind new clouds of rising dust, he sang a round of this old man.
