My mother and father must have said
many things, because I had to learn all
my first words from them—no television,

no day care—just a man and a woman
in the circle that makes a farm—
house and barn, shop and granary,

chicken coop, silos, machine shed
and corn crib. My grandparents had built
a house in town, but they came back

with their own words and their voices
slipped into the ones I was learning—
cow, chicken, dog, pig, and horse,

tractor, fences, rhubarb, please and
thank you. Lilacs. I must have listened to
the radio with its livestock reports

and polkas—and then on Sundays
there was Latin—Introibo
ad altare Dei, which I did not       

understand, any more than I did
the milk machine pumping like
a heart to draw down the warm milk.