WHAT THEY ARE MISSING Poem by Claudia Emerson

No man, not even her own father, may come into the house while the seclusion lasts; for if her father saw her at this time he would certainly have bad luck in his fishing, and would probably smash his canoe the very next time he went out in it.
The local boys are, of course, forbidden.
This leaves only the rare, visiting

father, awkward brother, the headmaster,
the boy who bushhogs the pasture,

or the chaplain in his telling collar - starched
tooth at the throat - to remind them.