How Darla Loved

of a Marlboro, snuck from her father's sock
drawer while he was tending to the horses

or bringing the chickens in for the night, she
could always count on one of the boys from

town to bring a bottle of Jack Daniels or a
case of beer, she had grown to like the taste:

the beer, the cigarettes, the boys, the freedom
that small town girls have to steal after the sun

goes down, she'd laugh and run naked through
the cornfields, past old Mr. Tatum's barn, and

plunge herself deep into the cool dark waters
of the swimming hole where she'd be joined

moments later by a group of drunk, naked boys,
yelling and splashing about, trying to get closer

to her, each squirming for a feel of her smooth
round bottom or breasts, full for a girl of fourteen

- Stephen W. Brodie