Tomboy

Katie's Saturday shadow
capers over the cattle-razed meadow.
With every leap and wiggle,
her yellow jumper pockets rattle
pine cones, a tiny mole's skull,
twigs, stones, and shards of blue eggshell.
At long last, she settles to rest
in a nest of black-eyed Susans by the culvert.
Grubby fingers rub grass-stained knees,
as she ponders new Nikes caked with dung
then turns to watch a solitary Jersey,
its jaw working round and round--
chew, chew, chewing its cud.
"Moo to you, Mama Cow."
Then, with sudden, wide-eyed-rabbit grace,
she scrambles to her feet, jumps the ditch,
maneuvers the barbed wire fence,
and bolts up the gravel road.