grandmother was born a century ago
thirteenth-child unlucky
her body burned with scarlet fever
barely six-weeks old
an old country doctor
summoned by death at a nearby farm
by serendipity stopped for a drink of water
the sun was merciless that summer
bring me the child, he commanded
taking her limp dusky-red body
he plunged her into a bucket of water
drawn from the well’s deepest darkness
he held her there ’til life kicked her tiny feet
handed her dripping
to a ragged farm wife
who’d buried three others
she’ll be okay, he said
moping sweat from his stained starched collar
climbing into the buckboard
he shook the reins and was gone
an angel disappearing
amid grasshoppers in the summers dust
but for one man’s thirst
i would have never walked this way
nor written these words
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