In Which Cocktail Hour Finally Gives Us An Excuse To Stop What The Rain Could Not

Late afternoon, after a hard day's toil

In my backyard with Dad cracking his whip,

It's cocktail hour. We watch the stormclouds roil

And lightning flash oer all that we did strip

Of weeds and bunch grass at no little cost.

I eschew power tools whene'er I can;

Expensive to maintain, then there's exhaust

Inhaled while working. But as Carol Ann

Sherrod might say, you does with what you has.

And what I had was a vast crop of weeds

Beyond what I felt I could cope with as

A single girl. But now my father bleeds

From helping me. The least that I can do

Is get him drunk, and yes, my mother, too.