This is called Farm Kids.

Our neighbor's slim rag doll of a daughter (not,

we're told, of his own getting) breathed out: "You've got

so many cookbooks!" - each eye a startled O

as it skimmed our kitchen shelves - "And so

much food!" Later, straight-faced, she said her mother

lives now with her new boyfriend in another

county. Hard up for farm jobs, her "Dad" has to drive

60 miles to the factory, getting up at 5

AM to leave them where his folks watch them

until he gets back home - sometimes 5 PM.

We go for long walks every evening. If we pass

their trailer, they all tumble out shouting, "Snodgrass!

Snodgrass!" The slim, straight-faced one is thought slow

by her teachers. There's much she'd do well not to know.

The cool offspring of our city friends are driven

to special schools, sports dates, parties, given

phones, computers, cars, the insatiate stuff

that will guarantee they can't ever get enough.

Our neighbors' less keen hungers and kinder drives

make sure they'll make nothing of their lives but lives.